Wallace-Joseph sinks 63 points in Lightning seventh win

Na­tion­al net­baller Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph scored a sea­son-high 63 goals as three-time tour­na­ment win­ners Lough­bor­ough Light­ning with­stood a stub­born chal­lenge from Not­ting­ham For­est to come away with a 75-73 win in Round Sev­en of the Eng­land Net­ball Su­per League (NSL) at Mo­tor Point Are­na in Not­ting­ham on Sat­ur­day.

The 32-year-old Wal­lace-Joseph start­ed off bright­ly for the league lead­ers, scor­ing nine of ten at­tempts and a per­fect four of four Amex Su­per shots to hand her team a 19-18 lead at the end of the first quar­ter with El­la Clark scor­ing the oth­er two points, while Anya Williams led For­est with 12 goals and South African Ro­lene Streutk­er added six.

The sec­ond quar­ter saw Wal­lace-Joseph con­tin­ue her dom­i­nance of her team’s scor­ing by adding 19 goals, which com­prised a per­fect 13 from 13 at­tempts, and three of four su­per shots, while Clarke chipped in with three goals as they won the quar­ter 22-17 to ex­tend their lead to 41-35, with Streutk­er help­ing her­self to 15 for For­est.

In the third 15-minute pe­ri­od, Wal­lace-Joseph again led her team scor­ing with 15 goals with an­oth­er per­fect 13 from 13 at­tempts and one su­per shot, while at the oth­er end of the court, Streutk­er matched the ‘Ca­lyp­so Girl’ ef­fort, boost­ed by three su­per shots, with sub­sti­tute Rhea Dixon, adding five as they edged the vis­i­tors 18-16 to trim the mar­gin to 53-57 go­ing in­to the fi­nal quar­ter.

Spurred on by the home crowd, Streutk­er had the hot hands once again for For­est with 19 goals in the fi­nal quar­ter, which com­prised four su­per shots to go with her 11 of 12 shots, while Dixon added one goal.

How­ev­er, led by Wal­lace-Joseph’s cool head and per­fect shoot­ing, which com­bined for 12 goals de­spite be­ing guard­ed by the for­mi­da­ble Jay­da Pe­cho­va, who fin­ished with sev­en gains and four re­bounds for For­est, and Beri Neil with four, and Clark’s lone su­per shot, the Light­ning kept the deficit to two goals, 18-20, to come away with the nar­row win.

Wal­lace end­ed with 43 goals from 44 at­tempts and ten su­per shots from 11 at­tempts for 63 goals on the night, while Clark scored sev­en points, in­clu­sive of one su­per shot, and Neil, the oth­er five goals, with one su­per shot as well.

For For­est, Streutk­er had a team-high 53 goals with 29 of 32 at­tempts and 12 from 17 su­per shots, while Williams added 14 goals and Dixon six.

The win was the sev­enth vic­to­ry from as many match­es to lead the eight-team ta­ble at the halfway stage of the reg­u­lar sea­son with 21 points to stay three points ahead of de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Lon­don Pulse, who claimed a der­by win over Lon­don Mav­er­icks 56-46 at the Cop­per Box.

In the two oth­er Round Sev­en match­es, Birm­ing­ham Pan­thers earned a first win of the sea­son at Lex­is­Nex­is Drag­ons, 48-47 in Cardiff, and AO Man­ches­ter Thun­der eased past NIC Leeds Rhi­nos 62-49 at Belle Vue.