Marianna Tolo on her drive for five WNBL titles

• Bendigo Spirit finished the regular season in first at 18-3 while Townsville finished third at 15-6
• Marianna Tolo last won a WNBL championship in 2019/20 with Canberra
• Townsville Fire are aiming for two titles in three seasons after winning in season 2022/23

For the Bendigo Spirit veteran trio of Marianna Tolo, Kelsey Griffin and Kelly Wilson, 15 is the magic number.

Currently, they have an incredible 12 WNBL Championships between them – four each – and if the Spirit are able to defeat the Townsville Fire in the 2024/25 WNBL Grand Final series, which tips-off Wednesday night, they will each boast a handful of titles.

It’s this type of experience that helped catapult Bendigo to a dominant regular season, where they finished on top of the ladder with an 18-3 record as they took on all before them. Marianna Tolo, who finds herself in the familiar setting of a WNBL Grand Final in her first season back in the league since 2020, believes this will also help them when push comes to shove against Townsville.

“I think that experience will probably be our advantage and has been our advantage so far in the finals,” Tolo said.

“Sami’s (Whitcomb) played in heaps of finals before, Kelsey, Kelly and I all have four championships, Casey (Samuels) has one.

"We're older heads, we're mature, we can kind of understand the game a bit more, we’ve been through it before and understand that there's highs and lows and not to get too frazzled within any situation.

“In saying that, Townsville are a strong team and they’ve also had that finals experience before and have some pretty smart heads on their team as well.”

After deciding to sign with Bendigo, Tolo, who added an Olympic bronze medal to her trophy cabinet last year with the Opals, couldn’t believe the talent she was going to be sharing the court with.

“I had been in Europe for a while, I love playing over there but it’s a really long season, it's eight or nine months of playing twice a week every week, which is really exhausting,” she said.

“To be honest, my husband got offered the job as general manager of the team and he'd been following me around Europe for the last couple of years and it was an opportunity he couldn't really turn down.

“He was going no matter what and it took me a while to decide because I'd only ever played for Canberra, other than the AIS, and so I wanted to stay loyal to them because I love the team, love the place but it just felt right because I had Kelsey and Kelly, who I'd played with before, Abbey Wehrung and Micah Simpson too. So, I had some good friends on the team and I'd played a little bit under Kennedy before.

“It all started to fall into place and made the decision seem right to me and here we are. It started off with just a few players and then we got Veronica, then Sami and it was like, ‘oh my gosh, this team is awesome’, and more so than that, they’re all just really good people.”

In her first WNBL Grand Final series since the 2019/20 season, Tolo and the Spirit will face a Fire group, who have done remarkably well this season. In typical Shannon Seebohm fashion, they’re a defensive-minded team that runs off hard work and have pushed the boundaries of what they could be as a unit.

Courtney Woods is the superstar of the team, and the one player remaining from Townsville’s last Championship in the 2022/23 season. She is joined by strong Australian talent such as Abbey Ellis, Alicia Froling and Alex Fowler, while the Fire finally got their import pairing correct after a couple of attempts as Jacey Sheldon and Zia Cooke didn’t work out. Nia Coffey’s signature late in the season was a game-changer for the Fire and pairing her alongside fellow import Lauren Cox – who was crowned Defensive Player of the Year – has been a masterstroke.

Tolo understands the challenge ahead of Bendigo in trying to slow down Townsville’s frontcourt.

“(Cox and Froling) are really tough; they're big, they're strong, they're smart, and they've got Fowler coming off the bench too, she's undersized but just a workhorse and really crafty in there,” she said.

“I think it'll be tough for us, but in saying that, we have myself, Kelsey, Casey, and Ash Hannan as well. We've got some talent to go up against them and while they're big, strong and long, I think we're also strong, fast and can shoot the ball as well.

“It’s going to be a battle and it's going to be interesting to see who can stay out of foul trouble.”

It’s fitting that the top two defensive teams from the regular season will meet in the grand final. Both have terrific on-ball perimeter defenders in Abbey Ellis and Veronica Burton, while the way they work as a team to slow down superstar opponents is what makes both teams so suffocating on that end.

“I think both teams will be locked into the strategy, and I’m sure both Shannon (Seebohm) and Kennedy (Kereama) have been going through it time and time again over the last couple of days putting the plan in place for the game,” Tolo said.

“It’s going to be a battle on the defensive end and normally finals are a gritty game, it can be low scoring but Townsville had over 100 points in their semi-final, so I think we're going to have our work cut out for us, but so are they.”

The way that Whitcomb has gone about her business this season has been extraordinary, and she’s at her best when tasked with being more than just a shooter. She’s much more than that and her ability to defend on the perimeter, facilitate for her teammates and lead from the front is what makes her so valuable. Of course, those signature one-legged triples are a lot of fun too.

Whitcomb has done just about everything in basketball and after claiming her maiden WNBL MVP a couple of weeks ago, she’s within striking distance of adding that long-awaited WNBL Championship to her already impressive resume.

One of the battles I’m most looking forward to is Burton going head-to-head with Ellis. Both are absolute pests on the defensive end, in the best possible way, and both have hit big shots when their team has needed it most at stages throughout the season.

They are true two-way guards of the WNBL and they are going to be vital to their team’s chances of slowing down the offensive talent that will be on show.

Speaking of offensive talent, Coffey’s game one against the Lynx will be remembered in Fire folklore, 36 points on 12-from-17 shooting from the field and a ridiculous 6-from-7 from deep was too much for Perth to overcome and now with 10 games under her belt with Townsville, she just continues to look more and more comfortable out there.

The chess match between Kereama and Seebohm is going to be fascinating to watch. They’ve got the most out of their squads this season and know their players better than anyone.

Tolo has been impressed with Kereama’s presence this season.

“He's great,” she said.

“He cares so much about our team - not just on the court, but off the court he has that genuine care factor and I think whenever that happens, it really helps you form a connection.

“I see the way he works out everyone on our team, not just the players who play the bigger minutes but the development players, the younger players on our team and it's made such a difference.

“It really helps everyone to feel valued and feel like they have a place on the team. He's done such a great job to bring us all together.”

For Tolo, she’s hungry to add another championship and the opportunity to do it alongside great friends makes it all the more special.

“Five has a nice ring to it,” she said with a laugh.

“It would be a cherry on top I guess, but not only that, to do it alongside Kelsey and Kelly who also have four, I think that's really cool. To be able to get five would be pretty special.”

2024/25 WNBL Grand Final series

Game 1: Wednesday, March 5, 7pm AEDT in Bendigo

Game 2: Sunday, March 9, 2pm AEST in Townsville

Game 3 (if necessary): Wednesday, March 12, 7pm AEDT in Bendigo 

About the Author

Hayley Wildes is passionate about all things Australian women’s basketball and loves to highlight the stories of players from all levels and competitions across the globe. From our own backyard in the WNBL, to the WNBA and the Opals, and everything in between, Hayley has you covered.