The Brydens Sydney Uni Flames will use the momentum generated from Sunday’s hard-fought away victory over Adelaide to tackle Wattle Valley WNBL table toppers the Bendigo Bank Bendigo Spirit at Brydens Stadium on Saturday night.
Set with the challenge of delivering the Sprit just their third loss of the season, Flames in-form guard Katie-Rae Ebzery believes that the team is in the right frame of mind to cause an upset following a breakthrough victory against Adelaide last weekend.
“It’s great to know that we can win those close ones,” said Ebzery following the Flames 71-68 victory in Adelaide.
Less than 48 hours earlier Sydney Uni lost to Melbourne by the same slender margin.
“We’ve come up short a few times this year, so to close out the game and win a tight one was important for us,” said Ebzery, who scored 25 points against Adelaide and 17 against Melbourne.
“We all have to be on top of our game in order to be close to a team like Bendigo. But riding the momentum of a win always helps you to do that.”
Despite comfortably sitting atop the WNBL ladder the Spirit possess just one player in the top 10 season scoring averages – 188cm forward Gabrielle Richards.
This stat points to the enormous scoring depth amongst the squad and was evident in the Spirits 21 point humbling of the Townsville Fire last weekend. Athletic guard-forward and Round 16 Wattle Valley WNBL Player of the Week Sara Blicavs (averaging 9.1 points for the season) stepped up in the absence of Richards to score 25 points and pull down seven rebounds.
“Defence will be a super key aspect for us,” explained Ebzery.
Drawing parallels to the Flames contest last weekend, Ebzery continued by saying “Adelaide had some really big girls in their group and we were able to limit their effectiveness, so we have to go in with a similar mentality and mix up our defences and throw everything at them.”
We’ve got nothing to lose, and we are going in off the back of a win. All we can do is go out there and execute our game plan as well as possible and give it to them as much as we can.”
Tip-off for this Saturday night’s Round 17 Wattle Valley WNBL game against the Bendigo Bank Bendigo Spirit is at 7pm at Brydens Stadium at the Sydney Uni Sports & Aquatic Centre.
All tickets can be purchased online by clicking here or at the door from 6.00pm onwards on Saturday night.
