Grasshoppers DS1 suffer a big loss in Landsmeer: 95-61

The Katwijkers travelled to Landsmmer, with good intentions, to play against the team that shares 2^nd place in the completition. Grasshoppers had lost from nr. 1 placed Lely with only 5 points, from the nr. 2 Den Helder with 1 point after overtime, and from Binnenland with 5 points, so they also hoped to play a good game against Probuild Lions. Unfortunately, they were rudely awakened. After a halftime score of 41-23, Grasshoppers lost with a whopping 95-61.

Grasshoppers started reasonably, but were not concentrating enough. Via 5-3, the score quickly climbed to 13-7 for Probuild. After that, Landmeer took the score, via fast plays, to 25-9. Canadian center, Mckenzie, already had 12 points to her name, and the American, Green, scored easily from outside with 7 points.

Grasshoppers recovered slightly from 33-11 to 33-19, and it looked as though the Katwijkers might get back in the game. Unfortunately, they were unable to score from inside in the first half, bringing them behind at halftime by 18 points: 41-23.

In the second half, Probuild got even tougher. Via hard physical defence, they placed great pressure on the Katwijker’s play. In this period, only Petra de Zwart could manage to score, bringing the board to 61-31. Then, Grasshoppers’good playing junior, Diana v.d. Boon, along with Carola de Jong, Jess Kemp, and Talia Versteeg showed that they were not finished yet with a 10-2 run to bring the score to 63-41, but the difference was still too great to speak of a good match.

Grasshoppers, who played with only 7 fit players, started to tire. The 2 juniors, Marloes and Diana, started to show signs of fatigue, and this also took a extra toll on the other players. Three-pointers from Carola de Jong and Jessica Kemp brought the end score on the board to 95-61.

Scores: Sanne van Bohemen 1, Diana vd Boon 7, Carola de Jong, 7, Talia Versteeg 7, Jessica Kemp 17 (10 reb) en Petra de Zwart 22 points.

Coach Mulder saw his team embroiled in a hard, physical game. “We knew from the beginning that it would be a very tough night. Because of injuries and other reasons, we had to play with only 7 players. From the 7, the 2 juniors had played a match earlier in the day, which brought too much pressure on the other players. Landsmeer took the advantage immediately via their tough defence, which seemed to surprise some of our players. Luckily we managed to recover well later. One advantage was that all of our players were able to play longer than they normally would. Both juniors played 24 minutes, and that is good for their development. Even though they were very tired, they both did well. Inside, we were fouled on many times without them being called. Probuild is a good team and the undisbuted winner last night.”