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| The Wild Women enjoy their annual Christmas fancy dress scrimmage (photo by Rachael Pearce) |
The Widnes Wild women’s team finish the year proudly occupying top spot in the Division 2 North league table, with 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat from their 5 league games to date.
They are being stalked, however, by Leeds Roses and Telford Wrekin Raiders who are just 1 point behind and each with a game in hand, but there is still a long way to go in this year’s league title chase.
It is a fascinating competition this season with no one team dominating and everybody looking capable of beating everybody else.
The only exception to this might be the Edinburgh based Caledonia Queen Bees who are a new team for this season and are a development team for the Steel Queens team who won the league last season and were promoted to Division 1. They have lost all 5 of their league games so far this season, conceding 67 goals, of which 12 came in the Wild Women’s visit north of the border in early December.
Team captain Charlotte Cramp is the Wild Women’s leading scorer at this early stage of the season with 7 goals and 5 assists from 5 games. Former Belgium international player Leen de Decker is second with 6+3 and recently returned Amanda Armstrong is just behind them with 3+4.
The goals and assists have been widely spread around the squad this season with Lise Gillen, Jemma Brown, Phoebe Patient, Jennifer Hickey, Victoria Connelly, Abigail Aldred, Katie Fairclough and Charlotte McAdam all having found the net and 6 other players all contributing assists.
Katie Fairclough is the current leader by some distance in the Division 2 North “Bad Girl” stakes with 31 penalty minutes, due mainly to her 5+game for slashing in the home game against Whitley.
Katie is beaten, however, in the overall Division 2 penalty standings by three players from Division 2 South who all have 45 PIMs despite each having played fewer games than her.
The Wild Women are also taking part in a cup competition for the first time this season – playing Sheffield and Telford home and away in a 3-team round robin. They lost their opening game 2-10 at home to Sheffield just before Christmas so have a bit of ground to make up if they are going to have any chance in that competition.
The Wild Women are back in action on Sunday 12th January when they travel to Telford to face the Wrekin Raiders for a league game.
They are next at home on Sunday 26th January when they take on the same opposition at Planet Ice Widnes, 4.25pm face off.
