KRISTI Harrower expects the humiliation of last Sunday’s 19-point hiding from Townsville will fire up the Bendigo Spirit players for Sunday’s preliminary final clash with Sydney Uni.
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The Spirit were handed an 82-63 thumping from the Fire and go into Sunday’s clash with the Flames determined to redeem themselves.
Harrower, who is now an assistant coach with the Spirit, said Bendigo fans could expect a better performance at home on Sunday.
“That result (in Townsville) hurt everyone. We’ve done a lot of soul-searching this week,’’ Harrower said.
“We have to find ways to make sure we fight this week. Last week we came out of half-time really flat and the game got away from us.
“We had a really good training session on Tuesday, we’ll have another one tonight (Thursday) and a final session on Saturday.
“It’s do or die now. We have to be ready.”
Harrower said the Spirit needed to regain its trademark “team spirit”.
“The last two years the belief, the trust and the confidence we had in our group won us the championship,’’ Harrower said.
“It wasn’t left to one or two players. We had Kelsey firing, Gabe (Richards) and Kelly (Wilson) playing well, Chelsea (Aubry) was coming off the bench knocking down shots, we had my leadership… we were tough to stop as a team.
“Right now we don’t have everyone stepping up and being noticed.
“That’s not the Spirit way. For the Spirit to be great we need everyone to play their part.
“One of our biggest problems is we haven’t put together a full 40 minutes of basketball all season.
“You need to do that to win play-off games.”
The Spirit and Flames have met three times this season, with the Spirit holding a 2-1 advantage.
However, the Flames’ one win over the Spirit was in Bendigo on December 19.
That night the Spirit led by as many 17 points in the first term only to crumble in the second half and lose by seven.
“Sydney will be tough because they play well as a team,’’ Harrower said.
“We should go into the game with confidence because we are on our home court.”