Lewis urges Gladiators to put Eagles to the sword
Robyn Lewis warned Caledonia Gladiators can take nothing for granted as they look to book their place in the WBBL final.
The Scots welcome the Newcastle Eagles to their PlaySport arena this evening as strong favourites to progress from the last-four tie.
Eagles secured their place with a surprise victory over Sheffield Hatters and Lewis believes that’s a sign to always expect the unexpected come the play-offs.
The Paisley-born point guard said: “We’ve all played basketball for a long time and understand the nature of the play-offs. Most people would have been expecting Sheffield to win that game but it shows anything can happen and you can’t ever get complacent or make assumptions or it could come back to bite you.
“Newcastle will come into this game with added confidence on the back of that upset and we’ve got to be wary of their threat.”
Gladiators reached this stage last season only to suffer a painful semifinal loss to the Leicester Riders. Lewis, though, believes the squad is in a stronger position to go at least one step further.
She added: “The aim is to get better every year and we feel like we’re in a good place. We didn’t have the best ending to the season last year so we definitely want to make up for that and reach the final if we can.”
This is Gladiators’ final home game of the season and Lewis believes having their own custombuilt arena in East Kilbride has made all the difference.
She added: “Last year we were dotting around from place to place, in a different venue every day.
“Having our own facility and being able to build up a fanbase has been fantastic.
“We’re excited to have one more opportunity to play in front of our own fans.”
Tadej Pogacar took his third win of this Giro d’Italia on stage eight up to Prati di Tivo, extending his lead in pink.
At the summit of the 15km climb to the ski resort, Pogacar sprinted clear of an elite group to pick up bonus seconds that push his lead up to two minutes 40 seconds after his outstanding win in Friday’s time trial.
Dani Martinez, second overall, was second on the stage, picking up six bonus seconds that see him now sit 18 seconds clear of thirdplaced Geraint Thomas, who was fifth on the stage, dropping two seconds on the road but looking stronger than he did 24 hours earlier.
“It was a lot better than yesterday, night and day confidence-wise,” Thomas said. “I thought I’d just sit in today and kind of move on.
“In the end I felt really comfortable, I was quite surprised people were getting dropped, which is always a good sign. In the sprint I got a bit bogged down but I didn’t have the legs to sprint with those guys.”
The stage into the Apennines had been marked as one for a breakaway and a powerful group that included Romain Bardet, Julian Alaphilippe and stage one winner Jhonatan Narvaez did get away, but Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates offered them little rope and quickly caught them on the last climb.
Only a dozen riders were left as they began the final couple of kilometres, with Antonio Tiberi, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Michael Storer all trying attacks which were shut down by Pogacar.
The Slovenian then launched his own move with 200 metres to go and once again underlined his status as the class act of this field with another stage win.
“I was not expecting it at all today but as a team we rode super well from the beginning,” Pogacar said.