SSN Player Focus: Latanya Wilson (Adelaide Thunderbirds)
AS the Adelaide Thunderbirds booked a finals double chance on the weekend with a win over the NSW Swifts, a huge part in that success was Latanya Wilson.
Although she is not talked about as much as some of her teammates, she played a huge part in Adelaide’s success on Saturday, finishing with 14 deflections, 10 gains, four intercepts, a feed and a rebound.
In the latest Player Focus instalment, we put a scope over Wilson’s game to see what specifically makes her as good and as dangerous as she is.
Starting out at wing defence, her influence on the early stages mirrored the form her side was showing. From turnovers to other little issues, Wilson took a little while to have an influence on the contest.
But once she was on, she was on.
Wilson mixes up her style of defending her player. Heading towards the circle, she is more of a defender of space, but closer to the circle and on circle edge she is more of a body-on-body defender.
With a couple of minutes to go in the first quarter and the Swifts starting to get a bit of momentum, the Thunderbirds change up their defence end, which included moving Wilson into goal keeper for the first time this season.
She made an impact straight away with an intercept, but unluckily got a replayed ball call against her. Undeterred, she continued to lift from there, combining well with Shamera Sterling and using her aerial ability well to pick up plenty more rebounds and intercepts.
Returning to wing defence to start the second term, she combined well with Matilda Garrett this time to really heap the pressure on the Swifts ass they tried to transition into attack.
In the latter part of the second quarter, Wilson went back into goal keeper in what was starting to appear to be a Super Shot period focused tactic.
Just like the first quarter, Wilson’s influence really grew after she moved back to keeper. She has a strong aerial ability as is, and combine that with the confidence in her own ability to go for the aerial intercepts and she is one tough defender to get past.
Playing more in goal defence and keeper in the second half, Wilson continued to rack up the stats.
With eight gains, seven deflections, three intercepts and a feed already to her name in the first half, she doubled her deflection count in the second half and also continued to rack up the gains and intercepts.
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AS the Adelaide Thunderbirds booked a finals double chance on the weekend with a win over the NSW Swifts, a huge part in that success was Latanya Wilson. Although she is not talked about as much as some of her teammates, she played a huge part in Adelaide’s success on Saturday, finishing with 14 deflections, […]
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