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Ladder leaders Bendigo have reasserted themselves with a big win in the WNBL after losing successive matches before Christmas.
Ladder leaders Bendigo quickly brushed aside their pre-Christmas woes by demolishing Adelaide as the top three all won in the WNBL.
Spirit (10-2) had won their first nine but lost their two round eight games by three points.
Adelaide (5-7) had won three straight to move into the top four, but a resurgent Bendigo never let them into Friday's game.
Bendigo were up by margins of 11,19 and 30 at the end of the first three quarters in Adelaide and netted 16 of 34 three-points attempts on their way to a 95-67 win.
On Sunday, second-placed Perth (10-3) won 89-80 away to Canberra (2-10) and third-placed Townsville (7-4) scored a crushing 85-61 home victory over Geelong (4-7).
Down 6-2 early, Spirit piled on 20 unanswered points with Sami Whitcomb scoring 15 of her 20 in the first quarter.
"It was a good first quarter, the way we got out (was) the way that we wanted to and I think we just kind of continued that," Opals guard Whitcomb told ESPN.
In her first start for the Spirit forward and captain Kelsey Griffin piled up 23 points and 14 rebounds.
Sparked by captain and Opal Anneli Maley and Canadian Laeticia Amihere, Perth recovered from a woeful first half long-range shooting effort and three-ten-point second quarter deficits to score a fourth straight win.
Perth hit just one of 17 three-point shots in the first half, but Maley scored 14 in the third quarter, hitting four successive long bombs to give her side a 66-64 advantage.
"(Perth coach) Ryan (Petrik) gives us the green light to shoot it, that's our offence," Maley told Nine.
Canberra rallied to lead by six with less than six minutes to go, but a 11-0 run in Perth's favour secured victory for the visitors.
Maley tallied 21 points and ten boards with WNBA forward Amihere logging 29 points at an 83 per cent clip from the field.
Canberra got 20 points and ten boards from American forward Charli Collier, and captain and point guard Jade Melbourne tallied 11 points, 11 assists and five steals, as the Caps crashed to a sixth consecutive loss.
In Townsville, Fire trailed for just 14 seconds, leading by ten at quarter and half time and 17 at the last change and by as much as 27 in the last.
Four Townsville starters scored in double digits spearheaded by captain and guard Courtney Woods with 23 at 70 per cent from the field.
Fire, who notched a third successive victory, shot at 53 per cent from the field while the misfiring Geelong languished at 29.
American Haley Jones was the only consistent threat to Townsville, scoring 22, while Keely Froling added 10 points and 11 boards.
Two more matches complete the round with Sydney hosting Southside on Monday and Townsville at home to Bendigo on New Year's Eve.
