Favourites Gotland blow our girls away

They showed exactly why first thing yesterday morning in a terrific atmosphere at the Maxi Arena as they powered past Guernsey and into another final, 77-36.

The Greens can take a lot of heart from the way they never let their heads drop and continued to enjoy the experience throughout the 40 minutes, but in the end they had to bow to the superior side.

Signs were promising in the opening five minutes when it was shot for shot up to 10-10, but eight unanswered points from the hosts to close out the first quarter 18-10 put them on the road to victory.

Guernsey were being hustled relentlessly and harried into errors, which were then being capitalised on by Gotland, whose quality never seemed to diminish no matter who was on court.

Even when Guernsey started to get a bit of momentum going on offence after successive baskets from Verona Tomlin and Gemma Batiste, Johanna Persson hit a big three-pointer to bring that momentum to an abrupt halt.

Having started the second half 37-19 ahead, there was no let up from the home side, cheered on by their passionate fans and their pace and energy refused to drop, with Guernsey's number of 24sec. shot-clock violations noticeable as, despite their best efforts, they could not get good looks at the basket.

The third quarter ended 54-29 and Guernsey coach Pat Ogier used the opportunity in the final quarter to give youngsters Tia Barnett and Eden Fabbri a taste of the action, which they seemed to enjoy.

In the end, Batiste finished as the team's leading scorer with nine points while Tomlin added seven and there were six from joint-captain Emma Hicks.

The Guernsey men's team were destroyed by a third quarter three-point blitz by Gibraltar, losing 95-75.