Omega Netball Club News

The rematch between Omega 2 and Hornets and having lost the game the first time round, Omega were keen to even the score, with all 10 squad players making an appearance for the game.  Tight defence in the 1st quarter by GK, Louise Cousins, GD Lindsey Light and WD Molly Brett, intercepting and winning the ball 9 times between them allowing Omega several additional opportunities to score, but many errors on the attack with force the feed and bad passing, counteract this.  However Omega hold create a 5 goal lead by end of the quarter with the score at 14-9.

A change in the Omega attack at quarter time and the team take the court, but Hornets are on the fight back.  Omega’s defence is not quite as strong this quarter and Hornets shooters are very accurate and they begin to close the gap in the scores.    The errors continue in the Omega attacking play and the game is scrappy, which Hornets take advantage of.  They close the gap by half time to just 1 goal, with the score 21-20 to go into the 2nd half of the game.

At half time, Omega make some team changes in an attempt to change the team dynamics, changing Julie Stanbridge into GK, Claire Statham into GD and also allowing WA, Leanne Dickens to leave the court through illness, replaced by Queenie Pearce.   Not so many errors, with more controlled play in this quarter and the defence tightening once more.  Omega finally settle into the game, but Hornets match them goal for goal until the final few minutes, when Omega take a lead of 3 goals to end the quarter 39-36.

Bringing Leanne back on to court for the final quarter having rested a quarter, to replace GA, Anna Rogers, the rest of the team remain the same to avoid too many changes to a team that has started to change the game.   Hornets return to court not ready to concede the game.  In this final quarter, many balls are lost once again on the Omega attack play and Hornets punish them by converting every error into goals with accurate shooting.  Omega’s heads drop as they see Hornets taking and increasing the lead.  The score at the end of the game is 47-41 to Hornets.  A disappointing result for the Omega team, but all is not lost as they retain their top of the table place.  A tough match next, with the team facing Crosskeys, who are 2nd to Omega on the league table.

Omega B’s turn out with a bare 7 players and a reserve on the bench from the C’s as a failsafe.  Knowing this would be a tough, close game, Omega were fraught in their play with miss-timed jumps and attempts at one-handed catching, many mistakes allowed Phoenix to take a quick lead of 4-2 in the first few minutes.  An interception by C, Lisa Short which was finished off with a goal by GA, Anna Rogers and followed by another goal from the next centre pass brought the game back to level scores.  The game was neck and neck, but Omega slowly gained composure.  A fantastic feed from WA, Leanne Dickens into GS, Hannah Brown, completed with a scored goal, meant Omega taking the lead.  Omega defence, GK, Louise Cousins, GD, Claire Statham and WD, Molly Brett worked hard to keep Omega in the game, with each winning possession from the opposition in an attempt to turn the game around.  A simple error with a foul-throw and Phoenix capitalised on this error, punishing Omega by levelling the score, but Omega continued to put the pressure on, ending the first quarter 13-11 in their favour.

Once again in the 1st half of the 2nd quarter, Omega’s play is frantic.  So many silly, simple errors gave Phoenix the chance they needed to own the game, levelling the scores at 16-16.   The game continues with levelling scores throughout the quarter.  Another interception by Lisa give Omega the opportunity to take the lead, but they fail to capitalise on this advantage and the quarter ends 22-21 to Phoenix.

The start of the 3rd quarter and the first 3 goals of the quarter are Omega’s, due to one of many steals from Molly on Hatfield’s centre pass.  Unfortunately, the next 2 goals are Phoenix’s, levelling the score once again. Omega dig deep in this quarter and the feeds from Leanne into Hannah result in Omega taking and increasing the lead throughout the quarter.  Phoenix look like they’re becoming disheartened as Omega keep working hard to take control of the game.  This was Omega’s quarter for sure and they increase their lead by 7 goals by the end of the quarter, with a score of 49-42.

The final quarter and Phoenix are not ready to give up the game.  They come back hard at Omega closing the gap slowly, but Omega are hungry for the win.  They maintain their composure to the end and although Phoenix won the quarter by one goal, Omega prevented them gaining 3 points on the league table,  holding on to a 6 goal lead to end the game 49-43.

A huge thank you goes to Emma Faulkner, who supported the team by sitting on the bench as a failsafe to cover those on court who had suffered with injury this week (and for sharing the agony of watching the closely fought team!)

The start of the game and Omega 2 have a sloppy start, with many simple errors made throughout the court, which Hatfield Doves are quick to capitalise on.  Some great feeds from mid court to the shooters and fantastic linking by GA, Leanne Dickens helps the play, but some accurate shooting by GS Hannah Brown, coupled with some solid reactions from Omega’s defence, Lindsey Light, Julie Stanbridge and Molly Brett, picking up some loose balls and rebounds allow Omega to remain in the game by the end of the quarter with Hatfield Doves taking a 2 goal lead.

12-14 to Doves going into the 2nd quarter and once again many silly mistake are made by Omega, forcing the pass, not meeting the ball and mis-timed movement, allowing Doves into the game.   The Omega defenders work hard, intercepting the passes and winning rebounds to give the team more chances to take control, but the team fail to maintain the ball to allow the much needed goals to be converted.  They fight hard to stay in the game, closing Doves’ lead to just 1 goal by half time, leaving the score 26-27 going into the 2nd half.

A team change at half time, results in WA Queenie Pearce leaving the court, replaced by Anna Rogers and a switch of GD and GK in  an attempt to change the team dynamics.  A strong team talk from the coach and the team return to court ready to fight for the game.  Although some improved play is seen, Omega win very little from Doves, with only one interception by C, Lisa Short and Doves prove tough to crack as they continue to pressure the Omega team and once again they increase their lead, this time by 6 goals by end of the 3rd quarter, with a score of 41-47 to Doves.

Hatfield try a team change in the final quarter and Omega try once more to change the team dynamics, with Louise Cousins taking over the GK position from Lindsey Light.  Omega are not ready to concede the game and mean business in the final quarter.  The changes made prove to be in Omega’s favour and they steadily close the gap in scores.  With minutes to the end of the game, Omega take their first lead, but this is quick lived as Hatfield score an equaliser.  The game continues with Omega taking a lead and the following Doves centre pass resulting in the equaliser.  Omega have a final chance to take the lead, but fail and Hatfield take advantage in the final minute, ending the game 55-54 to Doves.

A well fought game and great come-back by the Omega team.  They maintain their top table position and focus on the next game against Hatfield Phoenix on the 12th February.

Another exciting game to watch!  Omega expected a competitive game and that’s exactly what they got.  Baldock were definitely up for a win today and the game started with Baldock being quick off the mark.  Their accurate shooting, along with some silly mistakes made by Omega as they settled into the game, allowed Baldock to take an early lead of 6 goals, ending the quarter 11-17 in their favour.

A tactical change to tighten the Omega defence and improved positioning in the shooting circle saw Omega return to court, determined to fight back.  They settled into the quarter well, showing their opposition they were by no means defeated.  Omega upped their play and contended the ball consistently.  This coupled with consistent, accurate shooting, resulted in them winning possession more and closing the lead, regularly having the opportunity to get within one goal, but Baldock hit back each time, increasing their lead once more.   Omega maintained their play throughout the quarter, ending it with a two goal deficit by half time.

Some team changes at half time and Omega mean business as they take the court.  This quarter, there are many more interceptions made by centre court and defence players and with five minutes of the quarter remaining, Omega take the lead for the first time in the game.  This is short lived as Baldock score the next two goals, giving them the advantage once more.  Omega take the next goal and an interception by Molly Brett in WD, allows Omega to even the score once again.  The ball is back with Baldock and as they try to feed their shooter, the ball goes out of court.  Omega are keen to keep possession and focussed, controlled play allows them to pass the ball safely down court to their shooter, giving them back the lead in the game.   The next two goals are Omegas, giving them their first three goal lead.  In the final few seconds, Baldock take the ball to the edge of their shooting circle, where a tip from Molly takes the ball out of court and the quarter ends before a goal can be scored.

The final quarter and Omega focus on maintaining their lead, with Julie Stanbridge, GD, intercepting the first centre pass, but possession is short lived.   Baldock take the ball down court, but contact by their GA sees the ball returning to Omega’s control.  It’s a tense quarter for the team (and their bench!), but Omega maintain their advantage throughout the quarter.  With three minutes to go, Omega have a six goal lead, whist Baldock’s heads are beginning to drop and their shooters have gone off the boil. In the last 3 minutes, the accuracy of feeding and shooting by Omega is second to none and a further five goal lead is achieved.   In the last 40 seconds, Baldock loose their centre pass with the ball going out of court.   Omega take control, with considered passing down court, reaching their shooter who is contacted.  The buzzer goes and the Omega GS, Hannah Brown takes the penalty shot, increasing their lead to finish the game 58 – 46 to Omega.  A cracking come back by Omega!

The start of the new year and the return of Leanne Mansfield to the team after an ankle injury earlier in the season.  The Omega team continue their high scoring game from their final pre-Christmas game, scoring 16 goals in the first quarter.   The team defend well, winning the ball on several occasions from their opposition, limiting their score to just 4 goals by end of the quarter.

They continue in the same vein in the 2nd quarter.  Omega welcome the return of Leanne, who settles back into the game as if she’s never been away.  They continue to grow their lead throughout the quarter, increasing it immensely to a 21 goal lead by the end of the first half.

A team change mid-game, sees Leanne resting for the remainder of the game, with Jody Francis taking the court at wing defence and Molly Brett moving forward to wing attack.   With players now out of position and the team taking time to adjust, SAS seize the opportunity to fight back, almost doubling their game score by end of the quarter.  Omega maintain and yet again, increase their lead, scoring 25% more goals than their opposition, leaving the score 43-19 by the end of the 3rd quarter.

The huge gap is too much of a task for the opposition, so they set their goal to gain 1 point on the score-board.  The court play is more evenly matched with SAS determined to achieve their target.  SAS work hard  and their efforts pay off, achieving their targeted half score by end of the game.   The final score is 56-31, allowing Omega maintain their top of the table position, whilst further increasing their goal difference to a fantastic 234 goals!

Wow!!! What a score for Omega 2, assisting in increasing their goal difference to 136 more than the 2nd place team on the league tables, putting them back on the top of the leader board.

The first quarter and Omega take a huge lead, winning the quarter 23-9, giving them a great head start for the rest of the game.

The 2nd quarter and Omega win over the ball and have majority of the possession of the ball yet again.  The success in the shooting circle adds to the team performance and finishes off the Omega dominant team play.  By the end of the 2nd quarter, the score of 42 -13 in Omega’s favour shows the accuracy and consistency of the Omega shooters, scoring over 1 goal every 43 seconds in the 1st half of the game.

The 3rd quarter and the strength and control of the Omega play is too much for Shelley to take hold of.   Omega maintain their standard of play and further increase their lead to 61-20, giving them a great advantage going into the final quarter.

The final score of 87-25 is testament in itself to the consistency in turning over the game by the Omega players as a whole and the goal conversion in the Omega shooting circle.  A great end to the pre-Christmas games!

The team for the game was GS – Hannah Brown, GA – Emma Faulkner, WA – Lisa Short, C – Queenie Pearce, WD – Claire Statham, GD – Julie Stanbridge and GK – Lindsey Light.

Omega took the lead very quickly in the 1st quarter, with great feeding from the attacking players, into the circle where Hannah Brown was creating solid space.  Consistency in the shooting, steady, controlled play down court and strong defending winning many turnarounds resulted in a very comfortable lead by the end of the quarter, with the score 19 – 6 in Omega’s favour.

Cosmic struggled to retain the ball and convert the much needed goals, failing to score a goal until half way through the 2nd quarter.  Omega capitalised on errors made by their opposition, quickly increasing their lead, before taking their foot off the gas and allowing Cosmic to score 7 goals in the 2nd half of the quarter, leaving the score 38-13 by half time.

Cosmic tightened their defence in the 3rd quarter, but Omega shooters still proved too strong, scoring 16 out of the 21 attempts.  Once again, Omega defended well, intercepting many balls played by their opposition and capitalising on their gained advantage.  Cosmic fought hard and were not deterred by the score throughout, scoring their most goals in this quarter, but not enough to be a throw Omega off their game as they doubled their opposition’s goals, with the score of 54-21 by end of the third quarter.

The final quarter and Cosmic started slow gaining their 1st goal 4 minutes into the quarter and their other 2 goals in the final 1 1/2 minutes and Omega took advantage of this.   Some solid defending by the defence players, resulted in 12 turnarounds which the shooters were consistent in converting.  Just over a minute to the end of the game and Omega intercept and convert a goal and it’s their centre pass to end the game with 11 seconds to go.  Omega are quick to feed the ball into the circle, but pressure takes over and they fail to make the 70th goal.  The final score was 69 – 24.  A help to secure the goal difference should it be needed, but well done Cosmic for continuing the game with determination throughout.

Another competitive Herts League game between top of the table Crosskeys and 2nd place Omega.  The game started with the teams knowing the impact of the result on the league table, so both teams fought hard to retain possession of the ball and convert the goals, equalling each other in game play throughout the quarter, which ends in a draw of 9 goals a piece.

Crosskeys start the 2nd quarter with consistent shooting.  Omega break on a couple of their centre passes and Crosskeys take advantage of their error, creating a lead in scores in their favour.   Omega’s eye is off the ball for the start of the quarter, but they soon settle and capitalise on errors made by Crosskeys.  They begin to close the gap and an interception by Omega defence, followed by a quick feed of the ball into their shooting circle resulted in an equalising goal from Omega in the final minute of the quarter, with the score 21-21.

Neither team are ready to be defeated and both fight to control their play and convert their goals.   Some superb feeding into the shooters and solid goal scoring allowed Omega to take the lead for the first time in the game.  They hold onto their lead to close the 3rd quarter 35-32 in their favour.

A  focussed team talk in the final quarter, which the whole team took onboard and followed, allowed Omega to not only maintain their lead, but increase it radically.  Several interceptions by the defence players and solid team play, saw Omega take the top spot on the league table from their opponents, with a final score of 50 – 38 to Omega.

So, another great game for the Omega 2 team against Hatfield Pheonix.  It started with Hatfield attacking hard, converting their goals consistently, whilst Omega struggled to retain control of the ball.  Despite several interceptions by Omega’s centre court and defence players, the team made basic errors, negating their advantage and Hatfield took an early lead of 6 goals by end of the first quarter, leaving the score as 16-10.

Omega took to the court for the start of the second quarter, determined to get themselves back into the game.  With a tactical change in the Omega shooting circle allowing a target for some accurate feeds from the attack players, Omega picked up on their goals, winning the quarter 16-13, reducing the gap to 26-29 in Hatfield’s favour by half time.

Hatfield came back fighting and gave Omega a tough quarter, hunting the ball at every opportunity and winning possession on many occasions.  Omega struggled to contain Hatfield, but they didn’t give up.  The score going into the final quarter being 33-40 to Hatfield.

A motivation chat in the quarter and Omega are not ready to concede the game.  They take the court and work hard as a team to control their play and maintain possession of the ball.  This time, it’s Hatfield’s turn to struggle to contain Omega as they win 13 turnovers from Hatfield and are solid in their passing and feeding of the ball for the shooters to converted into much valued goals.  From starting the quarter 7 goals down, Omega quickly close the gap and turn the game in their favour, ending the game with a 2 goal lead and score of 50-48 to Omega.  A much deserved win with some spectacular netball in the final quarter.

A great start to the game, with several interceptions by the defence players, Louise Cousins, Lindsey Light and Molly Brett, turning the game over to Omega’s advantage, coupled with strong, consistent shooting by Chloe D’Arcy and Hannah Brown gave Omega an early lead in the game.  The mid court players, Lisa Short and Emma Faulkner linked the ball well in to the shooting circle, finished off with superb inter-passing between the shooters and consistent conversion of goals resulted in the score by the end of the first quarter being 21 – 10 to Omega, giving Omega a comfortable 11 goal lead.

The start of the second quarter and Omega are off the boil.  Hatfield capitalise on the dip in play, reducing the gap in the score to just 5 goals and force Omega to make further errors.  Omega stabilized their play by mid quarter and began to regain composure.   Controlling the ball once more, they pulled back, retaining a 10 goal lead by half time.

A strategy change in the quarter chat sees Omega return to the court for the third quarter meaning business.  They turn the game around to their advantage with many interceptions, breaking down the Hatfield attack and this time they force Hatfield to make many errors.  The inter-passing between the Omega shooters was second to none and the shooting was spot on, both with around 90% accuracy in the quarter and scoring 25 goals between them.

With a lead of 31 goals, Omega come into the final quarter at a steady, controlled pace.  They take control of the game once more, gaining possession of the ball from Hatfield regularly throughout the quarter.  Fantastic feeds into the shooters by Emma Faulkner, using the ‘dummy’ and continued accurate shooting leaves Hatfield looking like they’re defeated before the end of the game.  Final score is 71 – 35 to Omega.  Some awesome netball and great teamwork demonstrated by the whole team, making an entertaining game to watch.  Well done team!