Endeavour Ipswich Basketball Club’s Senior Women secured their place in the WNBL Division One playoff final on Saturday, with a hard fought 75-53 win over a talented Brent Bulls team.
Ipswich led from start to finish, behind a dominant team performance that saw multiple players step up. This now sets up yet another final against London powerhouse, City of London Academy – a programme who, like Ipswich, have won multiple national championships and do it by developing talented young players through their academy.
Ipswich will no doubt, be dubbed as the favourites heading into the final game of the season, having won the National Cup back in January and adding the WNBL Division One title to their trophy collection last month. However, CoLA are the most dominant women’s academy programme, having bested Copleston (Ipswich’s partner academy) at last month’s WEABL final, for their third straight academy National Championship… fourth if you include the shared WEABL title with Copleston back in 2020 when the two were due to face off in the showcase event, before the pandemic brought the world to a standstill.
That 2020 WEABL Final was the first time these two programmes were due to go head to head in a finals event… we will never know who would have won that final. However, Sunday see’s these two great programme’s face each other in a championship game for an incredible seventh time in less than three years. It's impressive that both teams have remained not just relevant, but dominant, with such a high level of roster turnover, due to the nature of being a predominantly academy based club side.
“To win something in women’s basketball, you have to go through CoLA at some stage. Whether that’s U18’s, WEABL or Division One. They are the most dominant women’s programme in the country. It’s always intense, and it’s always a great battle” said Ipswich assistant coach Josh Carson. “It will come down to who gets it done on the day. It won’t be about the form book, or anything that’s happened before this game – it’s on a neutral court in Manchester. It’s going to be fun.”
The final will be on Sunday 28th April at the National Basketball Performance Centre in Manchester, at 1pm.