Perth Lynx Preview – Home to Townsville Fire
The Perth Lynx have a chance to avenge their lone loss of the WNBL season this Wednesday night, but it’s more about a desire to deliver a better performance that will be the focus up against the Townsville Fire.
Coming into the Wednesday night match up at Bendat Basketball Centre to open Round 5 of the WNBL season and the Lynx are sitting with a 5-1 record on the back of beating the Sydney Flames also on their home floor back on Saturday night.
Wednesday night’s game will be the first time that the Lynx have played the same opponent during the current WNBL season and it just happens to be up against the one team they have lost to so far.
The Lynx and Fire have built up quite the rivalry in recent seasons too having played one another in each of the past two semi-final match ups for a win apiece in those.
Then the first meeting of this current season was also back at Bendat Basketball Centre on November 6 which was also a Wednesday night and on that occasion it was Townsville handing Perth its lone loss of the season to date with the 84-80 victory.
While it was only a four-point margin in the finish, Lynx coach Ryan Petrik was anything but happy with the performance of his team that night and felt like perhaps the deficit at the end flattered them somewhat.
It was a game where the Lynx did manage to shoot 13/26 from three-point land including Anneli Maley and Miela Sowah going for 7/12 between them, but they only shot 50 per cent from the foul line.
Townsville also won the rebounding battle 48 to 29 for the game including 17 offensive boards for 19 second chance points while also dominating inside with 56 points in the paint to just 30 from the Lynx.
Courtney Woods and Alicia Froling combined for 50 points in the win for the Fire as well, but the response in the three games since from the Lynx has been impressive especially in the continued absence of co-captain Amy Atwell with a knee injury.
Just three days after that loss and the Lynx played their first road game of the season beating the Adelaide Lightning by 14 points before a thrilling win also away from home against the UC Capitals.
The Lynx were then back home on Saturday night and had to overcome an 11-point deficit at half-time before taking charge after the break on the way to the eventual 84-78 victory against the Sydney Flames.
That has the Lynx now with a 5-1 record heading into Wednesday night’s match up back at Bendat Basketball Centre against a Fire team who are now 3-2 with some mixed results since that win in Perth earlier in the season.
Lynx coach Ryan Petrik is still not happy with how his team played last time against Townsville, but Wednesday night isn’t about getting revenge, it’s just all about having his side performing more to the level he expects.
“It’s not so much we owe Townsville, it’s just how badly we played ourselves,” Petrik said.
“Townsville were really good and deserved to win, that’s fine, but I don’t think we’ve played a worse game of basketball in a long time. Still somehow we only lost by four so I guess that’s the glass half full.
“We should have lost by 80 and we only lost by four, so we’ll take that, but we have a long way to go yet.”
Perth’s star import Laeticia Amihere was outstanding in Saturday’s win against Sydney with 28 points, four rebounds, four assists and four steals, and is just looking forward to another chance to play no matter the opponent.
“I look forward to every game. We’ll just focus on playing better basketball on both sides,” she said.
“We need to start off the game stronger and we’ll focus on doing that.”
CYGNETT WNBL SEASON 2024/25
Round 5 – Perth Lynx v Southside Flyers
Venue – Bendat Basketball Centre
Tip-off – Wednesday November 27, 6.30pm AWST
Tickets – Available by clicking here
How to watch – Live on ESPN