In their final home game of the season, Birmingham followed up their close fought cup victory last week against Coventry with a much more emphatic 57-17 victory over Aston, giving them a 9-0 record going into their final league game against Loughborough 3rds in two week’s time.
With the tantalizing prospect of sports night to come after the 9:30pm match, Birmingham started the game in a convincing manner, racking up early points, and after just six and a half minutes, Aston called a timeout with the score at 8-0.
Birmingham continued the first quarter as if there had been no stoppage, and scored five more points before inexplicably Aston, who had been unthreatening to say the least, hit a buzzer beating three pointer from almost half-court. That rather unjustly made it 13-3, but it had been a good overall period for the hosts.
The second quarter was a similar story to the first, with the home team looking by far and away the better side, and Aston struggling to get a foothold in the game. The highlight of the quarter was a fantastic drive into the paint from Gold, who was unfortunate to get fouled, and converted one of her free throws. It was 22-5 at half-time.
In a much more high-scoring quarter, Birmingham again looked on top, with Mackenzie-Spooner’s footwork causing all sorts of problems for the away side, and Miller putting up a good points total as well. The game was more open, and this led to more scoring plays for Aston, but Lionesses extended their lead to 28 at the end of the quarter, 40-12.
Mackenzie-Spooner again impressed in the fourth, dancing through Aston, and Madden was on form too, hitting a great three pointer from deep. The game was already a foregone conclusion at this point, but it was good to see Birmingham’s desire to extend their lead remained, as they pushed Aston to the end, racking up a 57-17 victory.
Despite that, this Birmingham team have racked up huge victories this season against lesser opposition, the 91-5 against Derby in particular comes to mind, and they may be slightly disappointing with this relatively low score, given the gulf in class between the two teams.
Nevertheless, it is always difficult when a team is expected to win a match, and ultimately Birmingham did so in impressive fashion, and will hope that they can continue this form in the cup and final league game.
