Loss leaves struggling Flames walking tightrope to play-offs

By MAUREEN FITZHENRY

The Sydney Flames must win all four remaining games to make the play-offs after losing an important match to the Melbourne Tigers at the SuperDome on Saturday night.

Steadily dropping down the ladder of the Women's National Basketball League since an explosive string of victories mid-season, the 8-9 Flames have lost all but two of their past seven games.

The Tigers, on the other hand, have been fighting their way up from the basement and now equal the Flames' win-loss record in an extremely close race to the post season.

Only the students of the Australian Institute of Sport, who have won just a single game this year, sit lower in the rankings.

The fortunes of both Sydney and Melbourne now depend on the way the chips fall for Bulleen, Adelaide, Dandenong and Perth, while Canberra are well in front at 14-5.

On Saturday night, the Tigers outshot and outmanoeuvred the Flames and slowly but surely took an 11-point lead by half-time.

Adding to Sydney's first-half woes, star forward Trish Fallon - the second highest scorer in the league - sank only two baskets in the opening session.

"I haven't seen that too often," coach Bill Tomlinson said of Fallon, who averages 21.4 points a game. "And obviously we didn't need that right now."

Shooting was a problem for the team as a whole, who completed 39.7 per cent of attempts to Melbourne's 50 per cent.

"It was a hard grind to score," Tomlinson conceded.

Fallon shot nine for 24, while the team's other regular hot-shot, guard Annie LaFleur, had only six for 16 from the field.

Sydney's struggle was no easier in the second half, despite renewed efforts by Fallon and a strong showing by young centre Suzy Batkovic, who risked foul trouble but scored 15 points and eight rebounds for the game.

The Tigers, who never gave up the lead, kept pressure on the ebbing Flames to forge a 16-point lead midway through the second half.

Melbourne's Kristin Folkl powered on to score 26 points and lead her team to the eventual 73-56 victory. Kerryn Henderson, Michelle Griffiths and Kristi Harrower each had 10, while the diminutive Harrower shared top rebound marks with Griffiths at eight apiece. The Flames lost their only other match against the Tigers, 79-69, in Melbourne on November 12.

Tomlinson said he hoped an expected victory over the AIS at home on Saturday would boost his team's confidence enough to carry through the rest of the season.

The Tigers have been on a roll since acquiring Griffiths a few weeks before Christmas, when she returned to the court after the birth of her first child last year.

Although they lost a close one to the Perth Breakers on January 22, Melbourne had won their previous two games and still threaten to snatch a play-off berth.