Anglia Ruskin University National Basketball Division One women’s team came away from a tough weekend of action with a statement victory over close rivals University of Nottingham, following a tough loss to the Bristol Academy Flyers.

ARU Women got their weekend kicked on Saturday with a home loss against the second placed Bristol Academy Flyers by a final score of 82-77.

ARU started the game slowly, with Bristol able to get into a great rhythm early on as they would race into a 13 point lead at the end of ten minutes, up 30-17.

The second and third quarters were much better for ARU playing on their home court in Kelsey Kerridge, as they would limit the visitors to just 23 points whilst scoring 48 points themselves during the twenty minutes of action.

ARU forwards Katrin Hulme and Nadege Talva both played significant minutes and would finish with 18 and 16 points respectively, with ARU particularly deadly in the paint.

The final quarter would see a reversal of fortunes as the second in the table Flyers roared back at the hosts. Led by point guard Mai Zilbeti’s 19 points, the Flyers were able to score 29 points whilst limiting ARU to just 12 points to close out the game.

Baiocco was happy with the effort her team put in and was looking forward to Sunday’s game against Nottingham, “We have to improve our defence and we try a good solution in offence.”

ARU put their tough loss behind them to beat the University of Nottingham 70-51 at the Stephen Person on Sunday.

ARU trailed early in the contest but fought back to take a lead into the first intermission and keep it the rest of the way.

ARU were led in scoring by Nadege Talva who had a dominant performance in the paint for her team, scoring tough baskets despite good interior defence from the Nottingham players.

ARU made one roster change from Saturday night with Maria Theodorou coming in. Theodorou performed magnificently, pulling down numerous rebounds despite being one of the smaller players on the floor and kick starting plays on offense. Another big performer for Anglia Ruskin was Marianna Maddaloni who scored four 3-pointers to finish the game with 12 points in the victory.

ARU played well on the defensive end, getting stops when it counted and finished the game strong. ARU held Nottingham to just six points in the 4th quarter whilst scoring 21 points themselves.

Head Coach Christina Baiocco was pleased with the mentality of her players, “I feel better than I did yesterday. They [ARU] played a very good game. We made some changes for the defence, this win was very important for us as Nottingham was very close [to us] in [league] position.”

Next week ARU’s women are travelling to table topping Essex before hosting Oxford Brookes and Barking Abbey London Lions II in another double header the weekend of the 24th.