West Spotlight | Hot shooting Lightning beat Wolves

Regan Turnour-McCarty and Kiriana Hawaikirangi came to the Lakeside Lightning for more opportunities and combined for 40 points and 13 threes to lead them to the 85-74 home win over the Joondalup Wolves.

The Lightning opened their season on Friday night with the 27-point win away to the Kalamunda Eastern Suns ahead of backing up on Saturday against the Wolfpack at Lakeside Recreation Centre.

It was the first game of the season for Joondalup under new coach Mitchell Langford and with plenty of new faces including Yemiyah Morris fresh off being part of the grand final WNBL run with the Perth Lynx.

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Both teams are attempting to return to finals in 2026 as well after missing out in 2025 so were looking to make an early statement. The Lightning got going from behind the arc in the second quarter to open up an eight-point first half lead.

That lead then grew to as much as 17 points in the third quarter before the Wolves hit back to grab the lead only for Lakeside to shoot their way to the win led by Turnour-McCarty who ended up hitting 7/10 from downtown in the game for the eventual 11-point victory.

It caps a perfect double weekend to start the season for Craig Mansfield on his return as Lightning coach and they did a lot of their work from three-point range.

The Lightning ended up going 21/49 from long distance at 43 per cent and including Turnour-McCarty's 7/10, Kiriana Hawaikirangi was a perfect 6/6, Sam Roscoe 4/7 and new face Esmeralda Morales 4/7.

That meant 49 of their 81 shot attempts were from deep and it paid dividends with Turnour-McCarty making the most of a starting role and playing 34 minutes after coming off the bench in last season's championship with the Cockburn Cougars.

She ended up with 21 points and five rebounds while Hawaikirangi has also made the move to the Lightning from the Goldfields Giants to deliver 20 points in 24 minutes after starting.

Morales also had 19 points and six assists with Roscoe also delivering 18 points, three rebounds, three assists and three blocks as she returns to the NBL1 West after initially retiring to move to England at the end of 2024.

It was a different focus from Joondalup with just the 18 three-point attempts and they scored 40 of their 74 points in the paint with Kim Pierre-Louis delivering 32 points, 10 rebounds and four assists with 12/19 shooting and 7/12 at the foul line.

Awatea Leach has made the move from the East Perth Eagles and had 20 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals while Yemiyah Morris contributed eight points and five boards.

The Lightning were coming off playing the night before with the Wolves opening their season and it was the visitors who started the better with a 7-0 run and dominating inside the paint with 16 points in the opening quarter.

But Lakeside did well to pull it back to cut the Joondalup lead to 19-18 by quarter-time before the Lightning kept that momentum going in the second frame with 28 points to 19.

That saw Lakeside leading 46-38 by half-time on the back of getting up 26 three-point attempts and making 11 of those including Kiriana Hawaikirangi hitting 4/4 for 14 points while they were also able to capitalise on the 14 Joondalup turnovers.

It was 17 points apiece in the third period with Lakeside still up by eight by three quarter-time with the lead getting out to 17 but the Wolfpack did fire back with their own 11-0 run and even hit the front early in the fourth.

But the Lightning responded once again and pulled away eventually with 22 points to just nine in the fourth quarter on the way to the 11-point victory thanks to a three-point barrage and some impressive pressure to help overcome the size of the Wolves.

The Lightning now hit the road to take on the Rockingham Flames next Saturday while the Wolfpack remain away from home on Thursday night against the Perry Lakes Hawks.

The other two Saturday night women's NBL1 West matches saw the East Perth Eagles beat the Willetton Tigers 86-70 and the Goldfields Giants defeat the South West Slammers 90-79.

NBL WEST 2026 SEASON | ROUND 1

LAKESIDE LIGHTNING 85 (Turnour-McCarty 21, Hawaikirangi 20, Morales 19)

JOONDALUP WOLVES 74 (Pierre-Louis 32, Leach 20, Morris 8)

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