Clark ready to return to action

London Lions will look to pick up where they left off when they travel to Oaklands Wolves for a WBBL Championship clash, on Saturday afternoon.

Mark Clark's women's side are undefeated in domestic competition this season but have been without a game for almost a month since winning the WBBL Cup due to a combination of an international break and Sheffield Hatters calling off last week's game due to Covid protocols.

“As far as I’m aware they only had two Covid cases and the rules state that they could have played” said Clark. “We played up there without Shanice [Beckford-Norton] and Cassie Breen were missing when we played up there. But for the credibility of the league I’m happy to play them midweek”

The potential title decider against the Yorkshire side will now be played at the Copper Box on Wednesday April 6 as part of a double-header with the men's fixture against Bristol Flyers.

The trip to Oaklands will see Clark's side face a team who were on the end of an 86-26 drubbing at high-flying Sevenoaks Suns last week Wolves also lost heavily when they visited the Copper Box with Lions winning 107-42 thanks in part to an excellent shooting performance Stephan Umeh who went seven-from-seven on the way to a 23-point, ten rebound double-double.

Clark is looking forward to getting back into action and won’t be taking the Wolves lightly:

“We haven’t played for a while so it’s important we use this weekend to get back in game rhythm” he said. “Oaklands will be interesting, I’m sure they’ll want bounce back after last week’s result and Lauren will make sure they’re ready to play us. I’m sure they’ll give us a tough game.”

Despite some heavy losses, rookie coach Lauren Milligan's young team have picked up three wins from 12 games to sit 11th in the WBBL Championship table. Merissa Quick top scored for Wolves with 12 points against Lions, and the American centre leads their scoring and rebounding with 12.7 points and 7.7 boards as well as averaging nearly a block per game. lizzie Harrison adds 11 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists while Beth Sarson dishes out 3.1 assists to go with 8.2 points per game. Milligan's plans to concentrate on coaching were ended by the departure of several senior players in the summer, and she is averaging almost 23 minutes a game, chipping in with 5.3 point, 5.7 boards, 2.6 assists and 2.2 steals for a side containing mainly academy players.