Above: Dandenong guard Rachael Flanigan elevates for a shot during the Rangers over the AIS on Saturday night.By Paul Pickering
THE Dandenong Rangers will return to the play-offs in the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) this weekend after booking their spot with a 77-57 win over the Australian Institute of Sport on Saturday night.
Veterans Larissa Anderson (18 points) and Michelle Brogan (15) orchestrated the wire-to-wire victory for the Rangers, erasing the memories of an agonising fall from the play-off bracket in the final round last season.
Securing the prized fourth-placed berth was reason enough for Dandenong to celebrate, but the Rangers will have a mountain to climb if they are to progress beyond tomorrow night’s elimination final.
Standing in their way will be the defending champions the Canberra Capitals – the same team that pounded the Rangers 88-60 in the second leg of their road double on Sunday afternoon.
While Sunday’s defeat could easily be dismissed as a dead rubber, Dandenong is now confronted with the sobering prospect of bridging a 28-point gulf between the teams at the same hostile venue this weekend.
Rangers coach Dale Waters, however, downplayed the suggestion of any minor psychological scarring.
“Given what happened the night before, I think it was always going to be hard to get them up for that game,” he said.
“The scoreline didn’t mean a whole lot to us, and I don’t think they will take a lot out of it either.”
Still, Waters is under no illusion about the difficulty of the task ahead.
While Canberra finished just one spot above the Rangers in third place, the Caps won five more games and swept the three-game regular season series between the teams.
But having rested Brogan’s niggling ankle injury on Sunday, Dandenong will go into Friday night’s second semi-final at full strength, while the Caps should be again without skipper Kellie Abrams, who has a fractured left hand.
For Waters, the keys to the game will be stopping Caps guard Nat Hurst and adjusting to the zone defence that suffocated the Rangers at Stud Road earlier this month.
And while Dandenong will also have to handle dynamic former Ranger Jess Bibby and retiring veteran Tully Bevilaqua, Waters says there is no reason for his team to feel daunted by the occasion.
“We’ve got nothing to lose, because I don’t think anybody expected us to make the finals,” he said, looking back on an off-season upheaval that saw the departure of stars Kathleen Macleod, Samantha Richards and Jenna O’Hea.
“The pressure is not on us, it’s on the Caps, because they’re the defending champions. But anything can happen in the finals, so we’ve just got to make the most of the opportunity we’ve got.”
If the Rangers can pull off an upset victory, they will play the loser of the top-of-the-table clash between Adelaide and Sydney Uni in the preliminary final the following Saturday.
Friday night’s game will be broadcast live on ABC2 from 8pm.
