Perth Lynx beat Bendigo Spirit in WNBL finals as Anneli Maley, Ally Wilson and Amy Atwell have big gamesCraig O’DonoghueThe West AustralianSat, 14 February 2026 3:49PMCommentsCommentsEmail Craig O’Donoghue
Perth Lynx coach Ryan Petrik has declared his team has plenty of improvement left in it despite beating Bendigo by 10 points in the opening game of the WNBL semifinals series on Saturday.
The Lynx started the best of three series with an 86-76 victory at Perth High Performance Centre and will travel to Bendigo on Tuesday with the chance to lock away a grand final berth.
The Lynx blew the game apart during the third quarter after Bendigo reduced the deficit to one point and surged to a 15-point advantage with one quarter remaining.
They then absorbed Bendigo’s fightback when they reduced the deficit to six points before pulling clear again. While happy with the win, petrik said his team had still been below its best.
“I’m happy to have won it but I thought he had multiple chances to knock them out and every time we were in that process they’d come down and hit a big shot or we’d blow a bunny or get a scheme wrong. So I’m happy to have won it but we know there is a lot to clean up,” he said.
“We’d love to play champagne basketball in every minute of the game. But elite teams and elite coaches won’t let you do that. So, can you play enough of it to win? Clearly there are some possessions there both offensively and defensively we need to clean up, and we’ll go watch a boatload of film before Tuesday.
“But good opposition in high pressure and high stakes moments will make you do things you don’t want to do.”
Perth had contributors everywhere. Anneli Maley had 24 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and three steals. Ally Wilson also scored 24 points, had six rebounds and five assists.
Amy Atwell scored 17 points while Han Xu finished with 12. WNBL MVP Isobel Borlase led the way for Bendigo with 22 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists.
Petrik said the depth of his squad stood out.
“We’ve said from day one that we wanted to be more of a ball movement and more body movement style of offence this year,” he said.
“The ball has generally popped more than previous seasons so they’re a bit more engaged on the offensive end and a bit more engaged on the defensive end. It makes them really hard to guard because all five are involved. You can’t key in on one piece. I’m really pleased from that point of view. We scored 86 and I’m not convinced we played that well on offence at all. We will take that.”
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