Shoalhaven was never going to give the Goulburn girls any easy shots at the ring nore were they going to let them hold the ball for long.

The Goulburn side which has a mix of more senior players and mostly younger players had their work cut out for them against the full strength Shoalhaven outfit who seemed to be expert atstealing the ball and intercepting passes.

From a spectators point of view, although the game looked fairly scrappy and very physical there was plenty of action and the final score of 80 to 50 didn’t reflect the exciting play between the two traditional rivals.

Shoalhaven has always been seen as one of the forces in the State League now named the NSW Waratah League. Goulburn has at times also been one of the stronger sides, but with only a women’s team in the competition and many of its players moving away for carreer or study it has been hard to maintain the strenght of years ago.

Boulstered by seasoned veteran of the sport Raylene McClelland, the Goulburn side played with a tenacity to match that of the visitors.

Shoalhaven managed to pull down the majority of rebounds,and intercept some of Goulburn’s risky passes limiting the Bears chances at scoring. It was also on those fast down the court breaks that they capitalised with their shooting.

Even from the outside when Goulburn limited their jump shot opportunities the Tigers managed to draw fouls and step up to the free throw line or pass back to a free outside shooter for a damaging three pointer.

In the first half Jordan Huntley seemed to be the go to person for Goulburn to find the net but in the second half she found herself double and sometimes triple teamed.

The Goulburn Women constantly found themselves sandwiched or closely guarded by at lest two players when inside the key making it very hard to get clean shots at the ring, but that did not stop them trying.

Goulburn too did its fair share of close in defence but the foul count eventually reduced the home’s willingness to go in really hard. In the final foul count  Ebony Bachta Naomi Lucas and Courtney Edwards all finished up on four fouls, while Kathryn Cudaj had to take a seat early, having picked up her fifth four contesting the ball under Goulburn’s basket.

While the Tigers outscored the Bears in each of the four quarters the level of intensity never seemed to drop and the contest was exciting to the end. Main scorers for shoalhaven were Kate Deyar and captain Misty Wood with the other players sharing in the glory.