There wasn't much Christmas cheer for Oaklands Wolves as they suffered an 83-57 home loss against Sheffield Hatters on Saturday.

In front of their biggest crowd of the season, Lee Ryan’s team led only briefly as the high-flying Hatters inflicted their fifth defeat in eight WBBL games.

With Shaquera Wade unavailable, Claire Abbott stepped into the starting line-up and led the hosts with 16 points, adding four rebounds.

Caterrion Thompson finished with a 15 point, 13 rebound double-double, along with four assists, while Beth Sarson and Allison Day had seven points apiece, adding four assists and four boards respectively.

It was a rough shooting night for the hosts, converting seven on their 29 three-point attempts and shooting just 27 percent from the field.

Day hit a triple to give Oaklands an early 3-2 lead, and they stayed in touch for most of the first period before former Wolf Melita Emanuel-Carr capped a 6-0 run to give Sheffield a 22-13 lead at the first break.

That lead grew to 46-27 at half-time before Wolves shaved a couple of points off it in the third period as Sarson’s driving layup saw them trail 60-43 at the final break.

A Jorjah Smith jump shot followed by an Abbott triple saw Wolves cut the gap to 62-48 two minutes into the fourth quarter, but that was as close as they came and they will go into the New Year sitting joint seventh in the table.

The WBBL regular season pauses during January, and Ryan’s team will travel to ninth placed Durham on Saturday looking to progress in the WBBL Trophy.

Wolves men return to action on Saturday evening when they host Baltic Stars Medelynas at 6pm, with tickets bookable through www.oaklandsbasketball.com