Spirit extend unbeaten streak to 7, after downing Caps at home
Bendigo Spirit remains the team to beat in the 2024/25 edition of the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL), after notching a commanding Round 5 win over the UC Capitals at home, to extend their winning streak to seven.
Buoyed by the return of captain Kelsey Griffin – who hadn’t played yet this year after fracturing her finger in training on the eve of Round 1 – the Spirit also had the opportunity to host an Indigenous Round-themed home match on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung people.
As has been the script so often already this season, the Spirit came firing out of the blocks, with a 35 to 22 first term. Unsurprisingly, Sami Whitcomb led the charge for the home side, top scoring for the term with 12, closely followed by Kelly Wilson with 10, who was incredibly shooting at 100%. (Whitcomb would go on to spend most of the game on double-double watching, finishing with 20 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and a block).
It was a similar story in the second term, with the Spirit extending their lead to 20 at the main break. After a breakout game for the Spirit in their Round 4 clash in Ballarat, US import, Veronica Burton, picked up where she left off at Red Energy Arena on Saturday night. After top-scoring with 20 points against the Flyers last week, Burton had notched 15 points by half time against the Caps, which she extended to 20 midway through the third term. She’d go onto finish with the game once again as the top scorer on the court, the stat sheet reading 22 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals and a block all to Burton’s name, in another Player of the Game performance.
Despite the Spirit extending their lead to 25 points at the final change, to their credit the Caps rallied, and went on to win the final term, 26 to 21. Led by their superstar captain in Jade Melbourne (who was oh-so-close to a double-double with 5 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 steals), and Nyadiew Puoch, who top-scored for the visitors with 16 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal, the Caps didn’t let the Spirit end things on their terms, reducing the final margin to 20, and preventing what looked like could be a potential blowout on the scoreboard.
In the end the Spirit ran out 98-78 winners against a Canberra side that – in the words of Spirit Head Coach, Kennedy Kereama – are a good team that are only continuing to improve.
“It was a really good win, a great team win…great team basketball, [but] there’s still some areas we need to iron out as a group,” Kereama said post-match.
“[It was] great to have our captain back, our spiritual leader,” Kereama continued. “This is a great group – they are a very unselfish group of people that enjoy being in each other’s company. They play hard for each other, they play hard for the club and the community here, and then getting Kelsey back just adds another dimension to this program, so I was really happy that for large parts of the game.”
The Spirit will now look ahead to arguably their biggest challenge of the season to date, when they travel to Perth to take on the Lynx in a top-of-the-table clash on Thursday night.
Tip-off will be at 10pm AEDT, with the match to be broadcast on 9NOW.