Basketball club ready for National Cup final

Team captain Harriet Welham lifted the trophy when the side won last season's competition in Manchester

A Suffolk basketball team has reached the final of the National Cup for a second season running.

Endeavour Ipswich Basketball's senior women beat WNBL Division One rivals Loughborough Riders 72-62 away from home in their semi-final.

Ipswich will meet either Thames Valley Cavaliers, who they pipped to the trophy last time, or Brent Bulls in the final on 19 January.

Head coach Nick Drane says the competition has a special place in his heart, describing it as a catalyst for the journey his team have been on.

Nick Drane was named as Basketball England's Coach Of The Year for 2024

Ipswich claimed the trophy for the first time in 2018, and had a six-year wait to get their hands on it again.

"When we won the cup as a Division Two side [in 2018], it signalled the start of the remarkable journey we have been on, both in terms of incredible team success, and individual stories involving local talent who others now aspire to be like," Drane said.

Alongside their cup campaign, Ipswich are second place in the league, which they also won last season.

It is a position the coach is "happy, but not happy enough" to be in.

"I went into this season saying 'top four, have a cup run and no-one will want to play us in the play-offs' and at Christmas we're in the cup final and we're second," he said.

He also agreed that he would have taken this position if it was offered at the start of the season given that they had "lost so many key players and replaced them with youngsters".

In addition to last season's league and cup double, Ipswich narrowly missed out on what would have been a historic treble when they lost to City of London Academy in the final of the play-offs.

However, having remained competitive on all fronts this term, it is an accolade they could target once more.