Beaming Oaklands Wolves players roared out a defiant message to the rest of the WBBL after their record-breaking win over Cardiff Met Archers – “you should be scared of us”.
The 95-36 success was the highest-ever win for the young club and their fourth in the last five games, form bettered or matched only by the top three sides in the league.
But skipper Lizzy Harrison told HertsAdSport that the reaction to last week’s win over Nottingham Wildcats had lit a fire under the Wolfpack.
She said: “It was a great team performance overall and that’s good because we had an awesome team performance last week against Nottingham.
“We were confident coming off the back of that, we were confident in practice this week and we came into the game against Cardiff ready to make a mark and show the league what we can do.
“They called our win over Nottingham an upset but we lost by two to them away and we should have won that game.
“So we went in the locker room and said that wasn’t an upset.
“It was such a great performance [against Cardiff] and defensively as well.
“We always say our offence comes from our defence. If we play really good defence then we are going to get some good looks offensively.
“We wanted to keep the tempo really high because that’s how we like to play and we’ve got a bench where we can rotate a lot.
“We try to use that.
“It was a lot of fun. Everyone got involved, everyone scored and we played some great basketball.”
The win was marked by the fact that all 10 players on the roster picked up points with Lauren Milligan and Tia Freeman top scoring on 13.
And Milligan says that strength in depth gives them an edge over other teams.
She said: “It was so good. Everybody played well, everybody was consistent and it was the first time we’ve all pulled it together.
“We had the young girls come in and they hit some shots.
“Not many teams in the league can do that which means we can run on teams and sub all the time.
“Other teams play six or seven players so the fact we can call on 10 is going to give us opportunities.
“People should be scared of us.
“Once you get one win in this league you get a bit of confidence and you get on a roll.
“Everyone has clocked what everyone else can do, we’re playing well together and we’re comfortable with each other.
“If there’s anything that people can’t do, we’re all chipping in.”
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