East Spotlight | Bruins dominate Nationals to stay hot

Featured image: @DiscoveryOne_Photography, Greg Francis

The remarkable unbeaten run for the Bankstown Bruins with Shyla Heal continued with an authoritative 95-53 win over the Canberra Nationals on the road to make it seven straight NBL1 East wins, and 15 in-a-row with Heal.

The Bruins won all eight games last year that Heal played and now made it seven straight this season after a complete performance against the Nationals on Saturday in Tuggeranong.

Even with Caitie Jones playing her first game of the season for the Nationals having just returned from Germany, the home team had no answers for Bankstown who were on a six-game winning run including snapping the winning run of the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles last week.

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Along the way, Bankstown led by as much as 52 points before winning by 42 while shooting 51 per cent for the game to 28 from Canberra along with going 11/24 at the three-point line to 3/22.

It was a dominant showing from Bankstown and Shyla Heal never needed to take over at any point, but still delivered 23 points, seven assists and six rebounds with 6/8 shooting from the floor, 4/5 from downtown and 7/10 from the foul line.

Shalome Dunlop also finished with 15 points and three rebounds with 3/5 three-point shooting, Kiahna Davis-White 13 points, 11 boards, two assists and two blocks, Tahlia Tupaea 13 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and four steals, and Margot De Freitas 11 points and five boards.

It was a tough night all-round for Canberra up against the red-hot Bankstown and not the Nationals debut Caitie Jones was hoping for having just arrived back from Germany on the back of the West Australian product having a standout first NBL1 East season in 2025 at the Albury Wodonga Bandits.

She finished with 16 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals while playing 33:39 of the game.

Callie Bourne also finished with 12 points, 10 rebounds and two steals, and Allison Day eight points, five boards and two assists.

Canberra might have gained the services of Caitie Jones for the first time but Bankstown came into the match up in hot form and that continued with a flying start with 26 points to 14 in the opening quarter.

That was with Shyla Heal happy to defer to her teammates with Shalome Dunlop and Kalia Proctor combining for nine points and the Bruins also forced the Nationals into seven turnovers and just 33 per cent shooting.

That lead for Bankstown then ballooned out to 28 points in the second period after going on an 11-0 scoring run and they were in a dominant position leading 52-24 by the half-time break.

Heal was up to 13 points, five assists and four rebounds going into the interval with Dunlop up to 12 points and the Bruins were shooting 53 per cent from the field with 6/11 from downtown opposed to the 28 per cent and 1/13 from Canberra.

It was more of the same in the third quarter with Bankstown putting up another 31 points on 11/16 shooting from the field and 3/6 from downtown while Canberra had just the 10 points on 3/19 shooting even while only taking another two three-point attempts.

Canberra did outscore Bankstown 19 points to 12 in the last quarter but that was only wallpaper over the cracks with the Bruins still winning by 42 to keep their remarkable unbeaten run under Heal going.

Canberra will look to bounce back next Saturday night at home again to the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders while the Bruins will look to keep their momentum going at home to the Inner West Bulls.

NBL1 EAST 2026 SEASON | ROUND 7

CANBERRA NATIONALS 53 (Jones 16, Bourne 12, Day 8)

BANKSTOWN BRUINS 95 (Heal 23, S Dunlop 15, Tupaea 13, Davis-White 13)