Bendigo Spirit suffered a 28-point loss to the Adelaide Lightning on Saturday night.
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The Spirit went into the match with the upper-hand having defeated the Lightning one week prior by a convincing 15-points at home at the Bendigo Stadium.
However, the Lightning came out determined to get the win and maintained a lead over the Spirit for the entire game.
"Adelaide came out firing that's for sure, they wouldn't have been happy with the game the week before," Spirit coach Tracy York said.
"They lead from start to finish and we struggled to contain them, our defensive effort just wasn't strong enough."
The Lightning went on a scoring frenzy- which featured strong contributions from Steph Talbot and Brianna Turner- in the first quarter with 28 points on the scoreboard to the Spirit's 18.
In the Spirit's winning match last week, shooting wasn't a strong-point for the Lightning.
But the team certainly made amends during the week to get back to its usual standard.
"They definitely weren't going to let the way they shot the ball last week happen again," York said.
"We weren't able to contain them, our intent was there but it was with poor execution.
"They scored points from heaps of areas and did well by running the floor and securing early steals.
"We just didn't match them early enough."
In the second quarter the Lightning outscored the Spirit to boost their lead to 17 points going into the half-time break.
By the end of the third the lead was increased to 24 points, and by the final buzzer it was up at 28, final scores 105-77.
Carley Ernst top scored for the Spirit with 17 points, six rebounds and one steal.
Shyla Heal put 16 points on the board with three assists and one rebound.
York said the team would focus on making "concentrated efforts" to improve overall defence during this week's training sessions.
"We will definitely be looking at that closely, we need a lot of individuals to improve in defensive areas," York said.
The entire WNBL will have a week break, with several of the league's players - including the Spirit's Tessa Lavey- heading to Malaysia to represent the Australian Opals in a pre-Olympic qualifying tournament.
"There will be a few concentrated efforts this week at our training sessions and then we will be back on deck and back at it next Monday," York said.
"The break will give the players some time to get their bodies right while we keep working the process to work out how we can get better."
Spirit's next game will be on November 24 at the Bendigo Stadium against the Melbourne Boomers, tip-off 2.05pm.
Season so far
- Round 1: def by Melbourne Boomers 72-87
- Round 2: def by Melbourne Boomers 74-70, def Perth Lynx 91-79
- Round 3: def by Southside Flyers 77-85
- Round 4: def Adelaide Lightning 67-54, def by Southside Flyers 80-93
- Round 5: def by Adelaide Lightning 105-77
WNBL LADDER
- Southside Flyers 6-1
- UC Capitals 5-2
- Melbourne Boomers 4-2
- Adelaide Lightning 4-2
- Perth Lynx 2-4
- Bendigo Spirit 2-5
- Sydney Uni Flames 2-5
- Townsville Fire 1-5
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