London Lions’ captain Shanice Beckford-Norton couldn’t hide her joy after her side lifted the WBBL Cup with an 87-47 hammering of Newcastle Eagles.
A record crowd at the Utilita Arena saw the Lionesses dominate the title game to lift the Cup for the first time, leaving their captain very happy:
“It was a phenomenal performance from us, and I’m proud of how we played” she beamed.
“We’ve been practicing at a really high level, and that paid off for us. We knew they’d play a lot of zone defence, but I was surprised just how long they did it for. But we used our wings to play a great inside-out game, and that worked better than just passing the ball around the key.”
The Lions captain had praise for centre Azania Stewart: “Azania always crashes the boards and she really cleaned up for us. But she can shoot the mid-range jumper, and she was knocking them down all afternoon which was a huge part of our success.”
Having won the WBBL Trophy and play-offs last season, Lions now hold all three pieces of knockout silverware, but Beckford-Norton wants more:
“We want to win everything, that was our goal at the start of the season and it remains that.”
Meanwhile Stewart, who shot a perfect nine-from-nine field goals to win the MVP award said:
“I think any of our team could have won it, this afternoon my team really found me and put me in positions to be successful. I feel we’ve been working so hard, it’s a great afternoon and I am really, really proud.”
Lions showed off their first piece of silverware when they were re-presented with the Cup at half-time during Tuesday's FIBA Europe Cup game.
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