This was published 7 years ago
Dandenong Rangers must defeat Sydney Flames to keep WNBL grand final dream alive
By Roy Ward
When Dandenong Rangers are fighting to keep the WNBL grand final series alive on Friday night they will look to retiring centre Jacinta Kennedy and fight even harder.
The Rangers are down 1-0 in the best of three series with Sydney University Flames but will have home court at Dandenong Stadium for Friday night's game two.
Rangers' Jacinta Kennedy (with the ball) tries to stay clear of the Flames' Tahlia Tupaea in their first playoff.Credit: Christopher Pearce
If they can win, they will force a game three in Sydney on Sunday – otherwise the Flames will win the title.
Rangers point guard Aimie Clydesdale said while her side wanted to win for the club and for their own reasons, they all wanted to see the team's "mother duck" go out with a title.
The 33-year-old came back to the Rangers two seasons ago after a decade out of the game while living overseas and raising her family with her husband and retired Socceroo Josh Kennedy.
"It has hit us all that this is our last week training together and our last games and we all love spending time together so it's a big thing for us," Clydesdale said.
"A massive part of our motivation is that 'Cino' is retiring and while we want to do it for everyone, in particular we want to win for her and there have been a few moments this week where she has been picking everyone up during a flat moment and pushing us on."
The Flames have their own historical motivation having not won a championship since 2001 and they put on an ominous performance in game one with Ally Wilson (22 points) causing the Rangers all kinds of grief on offence before Rio Olympian and WNBA point guard Leilani Mitchell made some big baskets in the final minutes to seal the win.
Clydesdale said the Rangers knew they had to improve their defensive performances, especially against the Flames' guards who scored 61 of the Flames' 91 points.
"Sydney has great scorers across their team and that's why they are where they are this season," Clydesdale said.
"We let too many people go off on us offensively in game one, we did a great job shutting down Belinda Snell but we let Ally Wilson get 22 points so there will be a bigger focus on our individual defensive responsibilities."
Kennedy and fellow Rangers' bigs Ally Malott and Lauren Scherf will have a big task keeping Flames imports Asia Taylor and Jennifer Hamson quiet after both performed strongly in game one.
The Rangers will also want to find more offensive support for Sara Blicavs who scored 25 points in game one.
But Clydesdale said her side was confident they could fix the small errors which cost them in the first game.
"We reviewed the game and it showed us that it was all fixable things which cost us in game one," Clydesdale said.
"We stayed with them all game and we just had some let downs in the last five minutes."
The Rangers are only thinking of one outcome heading into Friday's game and after beating Perth Lynx in three games in their semi-final series they know they can take this series the full distance.
"Everyone was up and focused for game one and game two will be a different feeling again as we have to win, there is no other option," Clydesdale said.
"The feeling in the team is very positive and there is not one of us who isn't thinking that we are going to Sydney on Sunday for game three.
"If we were thinking any other way then there wouldn't be any point playing this game.
"We know this is our last chance."
The Rangers and Flames play game two of the grand final series at Dandenong Stadium on Friday night at 7.30pm.
The game will be live-streamed at the WNBL facebook and WNBL YouTube channel.