T&T’s Shaquan­da Greene-Noel picked up an­oth­er “Play­er of the Match” award in her Celtic Drag­ons 49-44 loss to Team Bath in the Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per­league at the Sports Wales Na­tion­al Cen­tre in Eng­land on Mon­day.

The win helped Team Bath strength­ened their grip on the fourth place while the Drag­ons re­main in the 10th-spot in the 11-team com­pe­ti­tion with two match­es to go be­fore the end of their sea­son.

In the first quar­ter, the Drag­ons forced Bath to make sev­er­al er­rors and got to a 5-0 lead ear­ly. With 10 min­utes to go in the ses­sion, Drag­ons led 6-1.

How­ev­er, Bath did not stay down for long and won the ball back and got a run of goals, which brought them back to with­in two goals. Bath brought the scores back lev­elled with three min­utes re­main­ing and it was all to play for in the re­main­ing min­utes of the first quar­ter. Lay­la Gus­goth and Greene-Noel both won balls back for their squads, but it was Team Bath that took a slight lead (14-12) go­ing in­to the sec­ond quar­ter.

Drag­ons start­ed the cen­tre off once again and they pa­tient­ly worked the ball in­to the shoot­ing cir­cle to get the scores with­in one goal. Both teams stepped up the de­fen­sive pres­sure with in­ter­cepts one af­ter the oth­er, com­ing from Gus­goth, Imo­gen Al­li­son and Clare Jones. Drag­ons got the first goal and set­tled the play with a goal which got the home team back to with­in one.

The mo­men­tum shift­ed af­ter every in­ter­cept and nei­ther team could score. Bath added one more to their score and took a three-goal lead with six min­utes re­main­ing. Greene-Noel once again got an in­ter­cept and Lefebre Rade­man fin­ished the play­off with a sweet long shot to bring the Drag­ons back to two goals in this ex­cit­ing match.

Annabel Rod­dy kept the Drag­ons’ mo­men­tum go­ing and got an­oth­er in­ter­cept in the Bath at­tack­ing third, but the Drag­ons could not get the goal that would nar­row the scores to one. Bath changed their team once again. With the ball swing­ing Bath’s way again, they took the score out to five goals. Rod­dy tried to help Drag­ons get the score back with­in five with an in­ter­cept, but the buzzer beat them.

To start the third quar­ter off, Lau­ra Rud­land made way for Shona O’Dwyer in the goal at­tack po­si­tion for Drag­ons. Phumza Maweni flew for the ball and got the in­ter­cept for Bath off the Drag­ons’ cen­tre pass. They added two more to the board to start the quar­ter off with a score of 20-27. Drag­ons set­tled in­to the third quar­ter and got a goal on the board.

Greene-Noel con­tin­ued where she fin­ished in the first half with an­oth­er tip, but the ball fell in­to Bath’s hands. An­oth­er tip and col­lec­tion for Greene-Noel, but she just put a toe out of court! Drag­ons gained mo­men­tum and the pos­ses­sion with a break­ing call from Bath. Drag­ons cen­tre pass fol­lowed and they got the scores back to with­in six goals. The team ef­fort from the Drag­ons, al­lowed them to get back with­in five goals with two min­utes to go. Drag­ons missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to get back with­in four goals with 10 sec­onds re­main­ing with a tip from Gus­goth.

In the fourth quar­ter, the pres­sure came from Drag­ons to start the quar­ter as they gained pos­ses­sion from the Bath cen­tre pass! They got back to with­in three goals. Greene-Noel got the of­fen­sive con­tact and let out a big scream of joy as Drag­ons get clos­er to Bath.

Geor­gia Rowe helped with her team’s de­fence and got the pos­ses­sion back for her team. Han­nah Leighton with her huge ver­ti­cal jump kept the ball in for Drag­ons, as they get the goal and stay with­in reach of Team Bath.

Drag­ons play­ers were not giv­ing Bath an inch as they tried to get the scores even clos­er. A turnover came for Drag­ons and they got back to with­in five with a minute re­main­ing. Drag­ons could not push past the five-goal bar­ri­er that Bath cre­at­ed as the fi­nal whis­tle sound­ed.

Greene-Noel and her Drag­ons will next face Strath­clyde Sirens in their fi­nal home game on Sat­ur­day.