The club’s come-from-behind victory over the Bendigo Spirit in Cairns on Wednesday evening has given the South Australians a slim chance of breaking into the top four. The Lightning need to beat two consistent sides and hope other results fall their way to steal fourth spot from the Townsville Fire. As Lloyd Christmas famously said in Dumb and Dumber (“So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”), the Lightning will keep fighting until the door is slammed shut. Adelaide is 5-6 on the season, two games behind Townsville in fourth position.Both have just two games left.
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Adelaide guard Abigail Wehrung, who had 12 points in Wednesday’s win, was quick to swat away suggestions the Lightning’s finals dreams were over. Adelaide must upset the Fire on Friday and beat Sydney Uni Flames on Sunday in Townsville, while needing the Fire to fall in a heap on Sunday against the Boomers. “We can still play finals, if we beat Townsville and Sydney and then Townsville lose to Melbourne and us, we can still scrape in there,” Wehrung said. “Obviously for Townsville, Lauren Nicholson and Shyla Heal have been unbelievable for them, we need to lock them down and put together 40 minutes of consistent basketball.”
On the performance against Bendigo, Wehrung was pleased they could bounce back after losing five straight as well as being down double digits early on against the winless Spirit. “Obviously we knew they would come out to get their first win and we didn’t start well so to put it together in the second half and shut down Carley Ernst, who was unreal in the first half, was a good effort,” Wehrung said. “We needed to play like we did in the second half for the first half, and if we did it would have been a different game but it was good to get the win.” The 0-12 Spirit will aim to finish their 2020 campaign on a positive note in the first of the double-header on Friday against third-placed Boomers. Bendigo big Ernst is coming off a 32-point and 15 rebound performance. “The shots were dropping for me tonight but still we’ve lost again and it feels crap to lose once again,” Ernst said of her display on Wednesday night.
“We got off to a really good start and I’m proud of the girls for how they played, but the score doesn’t really show how hard we fought.“Credit to us and we haven’t won yet, but we fight right to the end no matter the score. “We don’t stop and our bench is absolutely amazing with nobody getting down. “We played a really good game tonight.”Friday night’s double-header is the final FNQ WNBL games of the hub before the season wraps up in Townsville.
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UPCOMING CAIRNS GAMES
Dec 11, 20205:05 PMMelbourne Boomers v Bendigo Spirit7:05 PMTownsville Fire v Adelaide Lightning
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