Thunder strike to victory against unbeaten Lightning

Within the first few minutes, big interceptions were being made during the end-to-end match. Thunder managed to create a gap of five before Lightning got their heads down to lessen the gap. Shooter Mary Cholhok was formidable as usual in the circle, as was goal attack Emma Thacker feeding her, but goal keeper Kerry Almond used her experience to keep them quiet. This gave Thunder a quarter one lead of just two goals.

Throughout the game there was a lot of contest on the ball with Lightning hassling the Thunder attack on the circle edge. Thunder’s structure shone through with Lois Pearson connecting well with captain Natalie Metcalf round the circle to find the perfect shooting angle. Thunder forced errors with no Lightning players able to get forward for Fran Williams, pressuring her into passing a long ball which got intercepted for the third time by the fingertips of Taylor McKevitt.

Heading into half time, after a 19-12 quarter from the Mancunians, Thunder stayed ahead with a slightly more convincing gap of nine.

Going into the third quarter, a confident Thunder continued the momentum, using the energy of the packed out Thunderdome behind them. Metcalf and McKevitt were applying the pressure around the centre third, making an impatient Lightning team speed up their game. As such, Lightning really tightened the screw on Manchester Thunder, creating opportunities and winning the quarter 16-12.

The final quarter saw successful attempts from Thunder to disrupt Loughborough’s gameplay and the flow they obtained in Q3. The Thunder defence of Shadine van der Merwe and Almond suppressed the fire of a frustrated Cholhok, so whilst she passed a huge 200 goal mark this season during the match, she was only able to score 33 goals - considerably less than her average of around 50 per game.

A last second, crowd-pleasing goal from Lenize Potgieter set the score at 62 – 55 to Thunder.

Match Report provided by Loughborough Lightning