THE fullstop came on a Bendigo Spirit season last week that was Jekyll and Hyde in nature.

As they proved last Saturday against Canberra in pushing the WNBL championship favourites to double overtime without their two leading scorers in Becca Tobin and Nadeen Payne, the Spirit had the capabilities of competing with the best.

The end result, though, was a 7-14 record, seventh on the ladder and fourth season in a row out of the playoffs.

The Spirit’s 7-14 record had them missing the play-offs by six games, and while it doesn’t look flash on paper, doesn’t indicate the full story in what was a season of near-misses – many of them against the four teams left standing in the championship race: Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

A glance through the Spirit’s 14 losses shows four defeats by margins of five or less – all to playoff teams.

Two of those defeats were in overtime, while there were another two extra time defeats – all four of which were on the Spirit’s home court.

Protecting home court is a must for any team with playoff ambitions and for the Spirit to lose four times in overtime at the Bendigo Stadium was a massive dagger into their top four prospects.

The first of those overtime defeats was to the defending champion Townsville when Fire star Suzy Batkovic made one of two free-throws following a contentious foul call against Spirit import Becca Tobin with 0.7 seconds remaining that levelled the scores.

The Fire then pulled away in overtime to win 89-82, a result that seemingly knocked the stuffing out of Bendigo given it had gone into the game with a 6-3 record, but would go 1-11 for the remainder of the season.

That poor finish after such an encouraging start wasn’t helped by a punishing schedule when in the space of 15 days during December the Spirit played five away matches, including four consecutive interstate games against Townsville (lost by 42), Sydney Uni (lost by 21), Perth (lost by 18) and Canberra (lost by 31).

There was also a hefty 24-point defeat to Dandenong during the stretch of five away matches that derailed the Spirit season.

In a season that among the 21 games featured seven wins, four overtime defeats, plus six losses by more than 20 points, there was far too big a gap between the best and worst of the Spirit.

That discrepancy in performance was most evident in a pair of back-to-back match-ups.

Firstly, when the Spirit lost by 28 points to Adelaide on October 28, and then six days later in their return bout in Bendigo won by 18 – a massive 46-point turnaround in less than a week.

There was also a pair of consecutive games against Townsville – the first the thrilling overtime game in Bendigo; the second five days later when the Fire crushed the Spirit by 42 points.

The Spirit pushed Canberra to double overtime, yet also lost their first two games against the Capitals – and former Bendigo stars Kelsey Griffin and Kelly Wilson – by a combined 71 points.

They beat the second-placed Melbourne twice – on the Boomers’ homecourt no less – yet one of the two games wooden-spooner Sydney Uni won was against the Spirit by a 21-point margin.

The Spirit’s up-and-down season had already gotten off to a rocky start before the opening tip when Canadian import Jamie Scott suffered a metatarsal stress fracture and never made it to Bendigo.

After a scramble to find a replacement for Scott, the Spirit settled on American Barbara Turner, but she lasted just 12 games before being moved on, with coach Simon Pritchard saying: “We found the best player we could secure in the short time frame of 48 hours, we chose based on recommendations. Unfortunately Barbara’s skills weren’t what we thought they would be.”

However, while the import signings of Scott and Turner didn’t work out for the Spirit, Tobin produced a strong season that had her being touted throughout the WNBL as an early MVP candidate.

Tobin fell just shy of averaging a double-double (11.4 points, 9.1 rebounds), while she produced the Spirit’s most dominant individual performance of the season in the overtime loss to Townsville on November 24 when she tallied 26 points, 19 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and one steal.

Veteran Nat Hurst won the MVP in her first season with the club; Nadeen Payne (14.1 points per game) led the Spirit scoring in a season where she reached the 200-game milestone in the WNBL; while Abbey Wehrung delivered the best offensive performance when she poured in 30 points against Canberra last week.

In doing so, she joined only Belinda Snell, Kristi Harrower, Gabe Richards, Kelly Wilson and Deanna Smith to score at least 30 points in a game for Bendigo.

Wehrung’s 30-point performance also came in the last game for Pritchard, with the club announcing with two matches left that his contract wouldn’t be renewed after four seasons at the helm, ending his tenure with a 36-54 record and paving the way for the club to begin the search for its third coach.

21 – Natalie Hurst

21 – Abbey Wehrung

21 – Marena Whittle

21 – Cassidy McLean

20 – Becca Tobin

20 – Kara Tessari

19 – Nadeen Payne

19 – Louella Tomlinson

15 – Maddi Wild

12 – Barbara Turner

4 – Caitlin McLachlan

4 – Bianca Dufelmeier

2 – Courtenay Wragg

……………………………...

713 – Natalie Hurst

657 – Abbey Wehrung

563 – Nadeen Payne

546 – Becca Tobin

401 – Marena Whittle

374 – Louella Tomlinson

314 – Cassidy McLean

296 – Barbara Turner

168 – Kara Tessari

135 – Maddi Wild

49 – Caitlin McLachlan

25 – Bianca Dufelmeier

3 – Courtenary Wragg

……………………………...

267 – Nadeen Payne

237 – Natalie Hurst

227 – Becca Tobin

217 – Abbey Wehrung

152 – Marena Whittle

149 – Louella Tomlinson

74 – Barbara Turner

64 – Cassidy McLean

46 – Kara Tessari

32 – Maddi Wild

4 – Bianca Dufelmeier

2 – Caitlin McLachlan

0 – Courtenay Wragg

……………………………...

181 – Becca Tobin

93 – Nadeen Payne

92 – Louella Tomlinson

84 – Marena Whittle

83 – Natalie Hurst

54 – Abbey Wehrung

38 – Barbara Turner

38 – Cassidy McLean

27 – Maddi Wild

12 – Kara Tessari

8 – Caitlin McLachlan

4 – Bianca Dufelmeier

0 – Courtenay Wragg

………………………………

66 – Nat Hurst

56 – Becca Tobin

50 – Abbey Wehrung

38 – Marena Whittle

37 – Louella Tomlinson

30 – Nadeen Payne

30 – Barbara Turner

18 – Cassidy McLean

9 – Kara Tessari

4 – Maddi Wild

2 – Bianca Dufelmeier

1 – Caitlin McLachlan

0 – Courtenay Wragg

………………………………

32 – Louella Tomlinson

29 – Becca Tobin

5 – Abbey Wehrung

4 – Marena Whittle

4 – Nadeen Payne

3 – Barbara Turner

3 – Cassidy McLean

1 – Bianca Dufelmeier

1 – Caitlin McLachlan

0 – Natalie Hurst

0 – Kara Tessari

0 – Maddi Wild

………………………………

30 – Becca Tobin

22 – Natalie Hurst

15 – Marena Whittle

14 – Nadeen Payne

10 – Cassidy McLean

8 – Louella Tomlinson

8 – Abbey Wehrung

6 – Barbara Turner

4 – Kara Tessari

3 – Bianca Dufelmeier

1 – Caitlin McLachlan

1 – Maddi Wild

0 – Courtenay Wragg

………………………………

30 – Abbey Wehrung

v Canberra, January 19

19 – Becca Tobin

v Townsville, November 24

8 – Louella Tomlinson 

v Canberra, January 19

8 – Nat Hurst

v Adelaide, January 10

4 – Becca Tobin

v Townsville, November 24

5 – Becca Tobin

v Melbourne, October 13

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