{"id":366397,"date":"2025-11-09T07:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T07:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/366397\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T07:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T07:48:11","slug":"adelaide-lose-wnba-import-in-strike-down-of-flames-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/366397\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide lose WNBA import in strike down of Flames"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Adelaide Lightning will count the cost of their most dominant performance this WNBL season, after star import Serena Sundell went down with a suspected knee injury.<\/p>\n

Sundell fell to the floor clutching her left knee in the last quarter of Adelaide’s 88-71 win over Sydney on Sunday, after a bump with Flames guard Mikhaela Cann.<\/p>\n

The Dallas Wings guard was able to hop off the South Australia State Basketball Centre court, albeit with a grimace, with a season-high tally of 20 points.<\/p>\n

Sania Feagin came close to securing back-to-back double-doubles (18 points, nine rebounds), while Dallas Loughridge (14 points, six assists) also impressed.<\/p>\n

The Lightning were clinical from the beginning on Sunday, leading from the third minute and building a 31-point deficit before Sydney finished strongly.<\/p>\n

\"Dallas
\n Dallas Loughridge shone for the Lightning, with 14 points and six assists. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Victory gave Adelaide (2-2) a second consecutive win, and the result even surprised coach Kerryn Mitchell.<\/p>\n

“We feel like we’re starting to find our rhythm as a group. The ball’s moving and we’re finding each other,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We had 16 offensive rebounds in a half. That’s not OK. Obviously, we need to do more work on that.”<\/p>\n

Asked about Sundell’s injury, Mitchell said: “I haven’t had a conversation with Serena or the medical staff. But we have some great medical staff. I trust them.”<\/p>\n

The Flames produced a convincing offensive performance against the Capitals on Thursday but played well below that level against Adelaide, scoring just seven from 27 three-point attempts and missing another 25 two-point chances.<\/p>\n

Go-to scorers Lauren Nicholson (14 points and three steals) and Shaneice Swain (16 points, five steals) shone, while Lara McSpadden (11 points) also showed flashes of her physicality.<\/p>\n

Sydney slumps to 2-4, having just snapped a three-game losing streak earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

“The positives for the game were for the other team,” coach Guy Molloy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You can certainly learn a bit from it, but I can’t say that it makes life enjoyable for the next few days.<\/p>\n

“We defended, about as bad as I can think for the first four or five minutes, and got into a hole early. The shooting was pretty horrible.”<\/p>\n

Both teams started exchanging baskets before Feagin and Loughridge stepped up to create a 10-point quarter-time buffer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sundell helped continue the Lightning’s momentum into the second quarter as they extended the lead to 16 points, which Sydney couldn’t pin back.<\/p>\n

Down 46-33 at halftime, the Flames came out energised with McSpadden leading the resurgence before a flurry of turnovers allowed Adelaide to manufacture a 31-point three-quarter time lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Sundell went down, the Lightning took their foot off the throttle, and the Flames clawed back the deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Adelaide Lightning will count the cost of their most dominant performance this WNBL season, after star import…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":366398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[104,17407,17409,17406,50,17408,7883,13319,62,4676,67,132,68,232,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-366397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-daily-news","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-inkl","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-news-app","14":"tag-news-headlines","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-today-news","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-wnba","22":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115518643551840480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}