THE Bendigo Bank Spirit’s struggles since the resumption of the WNBL season from the Christmas-New Year break have continued.
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The Spirit are now 0-4 in their four matches in 2017 after suffering a pair of interstate defeats on Friday and Saturday night by a combined 34 points.
The interstate double began with an 87-67 defeat to Townsville on Friday night, before the Spirit fell 77-63 to Canberra 24 hours later.
The Spirit are now 10-9 and have slipped from fourth to sixth with only five games left in the regular season.
Saturday night’s game against the Capitals had been up for grabs at three quarter-time when scores were level 56-apiece.
The two sides still couldn’t be split with 6:20 remaining when it was 60-all.
However, the remainder of the match belonged to the Capitals, who scored 17 of the last 20 points of the game to record their biggest win over the Spirit since November of 2010.
The Spirit missed their last 11 field-goal attempts of the match, with their only points in the final 6:20 coming from three free-throws.
The 14-point loss followed what had been a blistering start by the Spirit, who jumped out of the blocks superbly to lead 19-4 just over six minutes into the contest, with Kelsey Griffin (9) and Nadeen Payne (8) combining for 17 of those points.
But those first six minutes of the match coupled later with the last six minutes highlighted the gulf between the best and worst of the Spirit, which now has the side’s play-off prospects on shaky ground.
Griffin finished with 20 points to spearhead the Spirit offence, while Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe added 13 – nine from the free-throw line – and Payne 10 off the bench to go with eight rebounds.
Meanwhile, arch-rival Townsville set up its 20-point win on Friday night with a strong first term in which it led 25-12 at quarter-time.
It was the third game in a row the Spirit had trailed by double digits at quarter-time.
From there it was again a game of catch-up for the Spirit, but the Fire’s advantage remained in double figures for the rest of the match as they spoiled what was Bendigo star Gabe Richards’ 250th WNBL game.
Richards had nine points and three rebounds in her milestone match, while the Spirit scoring was led by Raincock-Ekunwe (15).
The Spirit will return to the Bendigo Stadium next Saturday night to take on the Melbourne Boomers.