Surrey Storm Netball overcame rivals Team Bath on Monday evening with a 56-42 win that was shown live on Sky Sports.
Surrey asserted themselves from the first centre pass to defeat the West Country side, who struggled to control their error rate across the court.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, player of the match Pamela Cookey was delighted with the result against her former side: “”It’s really important to get those wins back-to-back, we played on Saturday and again today so we didn’t really have any time to do any analysis and meet up.
It’s really important for us that we know that even though we are playing a different team, we can still do what we do – and it worked. They came out fighting in that second quarter and they really pushed us. Fair play to them, they really wanted it and they pushed us.”
Coach Greenway named an unchanged side to face Bath, with Mikki Austin and Katt Ainsworth retaining their starting places at C and WD respectively.
Storm started the better of the two sides as they raced to a 5 goal lead at 1-6 thanks to some early composed shooting from Rachel Dunn. The free-flowing former Bath trio of Dunn, Pamela Cookey and Tamsin Greenway were proving a handful for the hosts’ defence, as they found gap after gap to feed and score.
Bath shooter Rosie Allison was equally as clinical at the opposite end to soften the blow at the first quarter break, but Storm still held a commanding 9-16 lead.
Both sides turned over balls early in the 2nd quarter with mixed success. Dunn and Cookey were providing Greenway and Austin with multiple options to feed into the circle, with the England captain dropping back in after spending most of the opening quarter in a wide position.
Changes in Bath’s 7 on court sparked a renewed determination midway through the quarter, as Surrey’s grip on the game slipped to just 7 goals with a half time score of 22-29.
Amy Flanagan arrived on court in the 2nd half to replace Austin, pushing Ainsworth to C, which resparked Surrey’s flare. Storm were still consistant at the attacking end with Cookey shooting and scoring without challenge. Bath pushed hard to keep the visitors within touching distance, but error after error cost them as Surrey took a 28-42 lead into the final quarter.
Hannah Reid and Katy Holland remained tight on their attack to slow Bath down around the circle in the closing minutes of the game after the home side scored 4 in a row to remind the crowd that they weren’t giving up.
An evenly matched final quarter was just about edged by Bath, but it was Storm who took their 2nd win of the 2015 Superleague season, seeing them rise to 2nd place in the table after the completion of all round 3 fixtures.
Surrey Storm will return to the court this Saturday to host bottom of the table side Celtic Dragons at Surrey Sports Park (7pm centre-pass).
