DESPITE Team Bath going down to the Severn Stars by 10 goals on the weekend, many players on the losing side put in stellar shifts.

One such player was Jayda Pechova. In only her first year at Bath after crossing from the Pulse, she has slotted in seamlessly and made a real impact for her new team in a strong season performance.

Last weekend against the Stars was no different. As things started to fall apart for Bath further up the court, Pechova held her own down in goal keeper. Although she finished with a team high 11 penalties, more importantly she ultimately finished with five intercepts and four deflections.

This Player Focus aims to take a deeper dive into her game against the Stars; taking a closer look at her technique and approach, and what makes her as good as she is.

Pechova found herself on Sigrid Burger for the entire game, and from the opening centre pass was playing a very tight defensive game on Burger, with a lot of body on body pressure.

However, this was only while Burger was in the circle. If Burger ever ventured out of the circle, Pechova stayed behind and remained in the circle, knowing that Burger was not going to be as dangerous outside the circle and that way she could attempt to intercept any feeds that did come in.

Despite giving away a decent height advantage to Burger (8cm), Pechova’s vertical leap is strong enough that she can match it with Burger. She was not always able to intercept the ball, but her leap was high enough to really make things difficult for Burger.

On several occasions she also worked really well with Lily-May Catling and later Caroline Mtukule to double team Burger, who is the more dominant shooter for the Stars, which then created pressure on the rest of the Stars attackers to get the ball in and score. This did cause turnovers which Bath were then able to capitalise on.