THE Bendigo Bank Spirit’s Jekyll and Hyde season in the WNBL continued on Saturday night.
Six days after losing to the lowly West Coast Waves, the Spirit rebounded in style by defeating second-placed Bulleen by 18 points at the Veneto Club.
The Spirit led at every change on the way to an impressive 74-56 win to improve their record to 11-8 and keep alive their hopes of a top-three finish.
The victory continued Bendigo’s recent dominance over Bulleen, with the Spirit now having won three of their past four games against the defending champions.
“We were really good tonight, and it was a bit of redemption for us after last weekend’s debacle,” Spirit coach Bernie Harrower said.
“The girls really stood up tonight. We could have been down on confidence after what happened to us the weekend before, but defensively, we were really good.
“We also shot the ball well and did a very good job against a good basketball team.”
Defensively, the Spirit were outstanding, with Saturday night’s clash the first time this season Bulleen (12-5) has been held to less than 75 points in a game.
Bulleen averaged 86 points per game going into the match, but took until 3:11 left in the last quarter just to reach the 50-point mark.
The Boomers shot the ball at only 29.6 per cent from the field – including making only one of 18 shots from three-point range – while the Spirit shot at 42.9 per cent.
Bendigo led by nine points at three quarter-time, 55-46, and its advantage ballooned to as many as 23 during the final quarter as the Spirit won on Bulleen’s court for the second time this season.
Earlier in the third quarter, the Boomers had led by two points with 6:33 remaining, 43-41, before the Spirit scored 33 of the last 46 points of the match.
Bendigo’s Gabe Richards and Jasmine Finnigan did an outstanding job in restricting the influence of the WNBL’s most dominant player in Bulleen centre Liz Cambage, who was held to just 10 points.
The Spirit – playing their fourth-consecutive road game – also kept Rachel Jarry quiet.
In their previous meeting on December 7, which Bulleen won by eight points, Jarry scorched the Spirit for 21 points in the first half.
But on Saturday night she was restricted to just seven points on three-of-14 shooting.
In what Harrower described as a team effort, the Spirit scoring was led by Tess Madgen (19 points, eight rebounds), Deanna Smith (15), Kristi Harrower (14) and Chelsea Aubry (12, eight rebounds).
While pleased with the Spirit’s performance against Bulleen, Harrower remains frustrated by his side’s lack of consistency.
The Spirit are earning a reputation as a side that gets themselves up for big games against top sides, but lacks the same intensity against lower opposition, with there no better example of that than their past two games.
“There’s a lack of that killer instinct, I suppose you could call it,” Harrower said.
“Good teams come out and play hard every night, but we seem to want to pick and choose the games we do that in, and that’s really disappointing.
“We get up for games against teams like Bulleen and Dandenong, so why can’t we do that every night?
“Now that our backs are to the wall and we’re fighting for our season, all of a sudden the intensity has come back and it’s going to have to be there all the way through from here for us to make the play-offs and try to get a home final.”
The Spirit returns to the Bendigo Stadium this Saturday night to take on top side Adelaide Lightning from 7.30pm.
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