A BATTLE of top four teams ensures tonight’s WNBL opener of Round 9 is set to be a beauty with fourth placed Adelaide Lightning playing host to ladder leaders, Bendigo Spirit. The Spirit won their first nine games of the season, but have dropped two on the bounce since, and second placed Perth Lynx have quickly caught up to the Spirit.

Adelaide on the other hand came back from a shaky 2-6 start to the season to notch up three consecutive victories and leapfrog several teams en route to fourth spot and inside the all-important finals positions. The Lightning will need to keep it rolling and face stiff opposition tonight, but do take on the Spirit in Adelaide.

Adelaide Lightning vs. Bendigo Spirit

Adelaide 36ers Arena, 7:00pm AEDT

Adelaide will need to defy more than just ladder positioning if the Lightning are to overcome the Spirit tonight. Bendigo has won the past three encounters against the Lightning, dating back to more than a year ago. In their only clash this season, the Spirit comfortably held the Lightning at bay by 14 points, but that was way back on November 2.

In recent times, Adelaide has strung together some important victories, winning four of its past five games, and go from 1-5 to 5-6 and get its season rolling. Those victories were over bottom four sides in Southside Flyers (twice), UC Capitals and Sydney Flames, while also losing to the other bottom four team in Geelong United.

Bendigo went unbeaten for nine games in the 2024/25 WNBL season, seeing off every challenge before it. However back-to-back three-point losses in the past eight days saw the Spirit slip from a commanding position back to on par with Perth Lynx. It was the Lynx that toppled the Spirit, before Bendigo suffered a shock 88-91 defeat at the hands of bottom two side Southside Flyers.

Where Adelaide can cause some issues for the Spirit comes in its fast break points. The Lightning have recorded a whopping 76 more points off the fast break (141-65) which enables them to transition the ball quickly. However despite that, their field goal percentage has let the Lightning down (41.1 per cent), which is lower than the Spirit’s (43.9 per cent) and their three-point percentage (31.5) is also well down on Bendigo’s long-range shooting (36.2).

Isobel Borlase has been a shining light for Adelaide this season, and will provide the consistent scoring power, while the bigs of Brianna Turner and Stephanie Talbot can provided a few headaches for the Spirits off the boards. However, Bendigo does have a habit of putting up second chance buckets, with the likes of Sami Whitcomb and Marianna Tolo both having huge seasons and averaging big numbers across the board. Veronica Burton has had an equally impressive season for the Victorian side.

Outright top spot is up for grabs for Bendigo as it looks to shake off last week’s form anomaly as well as the Lynx, while the Lightning need a big scalp having taken down the lower ranked sides as they prepare to push for finals.