Sydney Uni Flames coach Cheryl Chambers surprised by size of her team’s win over Perth Lynx

COACH Cheryl Chambers has expressed surprise at the Sydney Uni Flames’ emphatic victory over Perth Lynx at the end of a tough two-game road trip.

COACH Cheryl Chambers has expressed surprise at the Sydney Uni Flames’ emphatic victory over Perth Lynx at the end of a tough two-game road trip.

Red-hot shooting, strong defence, a brilliant opening and a season best performance from Opal Leilani Mitchell has helped push the Sydney Uni Flames into third spot on the WNBL ladder.

Chambers said while she had faith her team could take the win, she was a little taken aback by the margin.

The Flames beat Lynx at home 93-69 in a game which Perth had been tipped to win at home.

“I am surprised not by the win but by the nature of it,” Chambers said. “We just came out hard from the start, Leilani was simply fantastic, we had a lot of good cameos and basically we just played really good defence.”

Coach Cheryl Chambers talks to Sydney Uni Flames players.

The win over Perth followed on from the Flames’ 89-72 win over Lightning a night earlier in Adelaide.

In that game Asia Taylor scored 26 points and made 14 rebounds.

Against Perth, Mitchell was outstanding with her 27 point haul. Taylor scored 21 and chipped in 13 rebounds while fellow American import Jennifer Hamson contributed 11 points,

The Flames set up their victory over Perth with a 16-0 run in the opening period and shot at an impressive 53 per cent from the field and 47 per cent from beyond the arc.

“I’m incredibly disappointed,” said Lynx head coach Andy Stewart after the loss.

“We fell apart in almost every area you could possibly think we could. We’ve got to do a fair bit of soul searching and review.”