Road Win at the Badria Fortress: VIMODROM Baskets Jena Defeat Wasserburg 76–66

The game in the venerable Badria Hall began at an incredibly fast pace. Wasserburg tried early on to disrupt our Baskets’ rhythm with an aggressive full-court press, but we quickly found the right answers in the transition game. Leading the way, Taylor Brooke Robertson (32 points) showed early on that she was “on fire” today. Virtually every open shot from the three-point line was sunk with ruthless precision.

But the hosts wouldn’t let us pull away. Time and again in the second quarter, TSV exploited gaps in our pick-and-roll defense to fight their way back at the free-throw line or through hard drives to the basket. Cianna Gloster (8 points) and Annika Schwarz (5 points) delivered crucial offensive jabs during this phase to maintain the lead. Our Baskets headed into the locker room with a razor-thin 39–38 lead.

After the break, the game increasingly turned into a true defensive battle. The physical intensity increased, and every basket had to be hard-earned. It was Marta Miscenko (16 pts.) in particular who demonstrated absolute dominance under the basket. With consistent box-outs, she kept Wasserburg’s second-chance opportunities to a minimum.

When Wasserburg seemed to be gaining momentum in the fourth quarter and the crowd roared to life, it was Laila Walker’s (15 points) moment to shine. With tremendous drive to the basket, she broke through the opponent’s zone defense multiple times and took control of the game. In the decisive crunch time, however, it was once again Robertson who shut down the opponent: With a nearly unbelievable 56% shooting percentage from “downtown” (9 of 16 three-pointers!), she sank the game-winning shots.

Even if their names didn’t appear on the scoreboard, the short rotation demanded everything from every player. Annika Heck (0 pts.), Stella Nwaobi (0 pts.), and Laura Thiele (0 pts.) gave their all on defense, played aggressive help defense, and secured the well-deserved road victory through tireless hustle plays.

The 431 spectators in the arena turned the Badria into an absolute cauldron. The atmosphere in the stands was extremely heated, but the referees delivered a very strong performance and kept the intense game firmly under control at all times. We, too, kept our cool throughout, didn’t let the frenzied atmosphere get to us, and punished our opponents’ mistakes with clinical precision. We simply wanted this victory more today.

Sandra Rosanke: “What the girls accomplished today is hard to put into words. We came here with an 8-player rotation to a arena where it’s extremely difficult to compete. The intense pace didn’t make it easy for us, but we defended as a true unit. Taylor’s shooting percentage today was simply out of this world.”

We now have a regular week of training ahead of us before our next tough opponent, USC Eisvögel Freiburg 2, visits us in Jena this coming Saturday. The home game will take place on April 4, 2026, at 6:00 p.m., at our familiar meTecno-Court (MTC) on Keßlerstraße. If we can maintain the passion we showed in Wasserburg, our fans can look forward to a true basketball celebration.