Minor premiers Townsville produced an awesome second-half defensive display to crush Bendigo 82-63 and clinch home advantage for the WNBL grand final.
Townsville led 22-9 early in Sunday's major semi-final at Townsville RSL Stadium, but Bendigo fought back to hold a 39-38 half-time advantage.
The second half was all one-way traffic, with the Fire outscoring Bendigo 44-24.
Bendigo, who won the last two grand finals at home to Townsville, will host a preliminary final next Sunday against the Sydney Flames, who defeated Dandenong Rangers 89-80 in Saturday's elimination final.
Forward Cayla Francs was superb for Townsville on Sunday, logging 20 points and 14 rebounds.
The Fire limited the Spirit to just seven points in the third quarter and delivered on the halftime instructions of coach Chris Lucas.
"He said we were giving up too many offensive boards and we really needed to shut that down completely," Francis told AAP.
"I think in the second half we only gave them one offensive board, so we did a great job of shutting them down."
The Fire outrebounded the Spirit 49-37 and also shot significantly better from the field.
Francis was especially dominant in the first quarter, stepping up when frontcourt partner Suzy Batkovic spent a few minutes off the court after hurting an ankle in the first minute.
Batkovic returned midway through the quarter and made a good contribution with 12 points and 12 boards.
Ading to a good spread of scoring for Townsville were Steph Cumming with 15 and Mia Newley with 14.
Bendigo struggled to find consistent scoring outlets.
American forward Kelsey Griffin led Bendigo with 21 points, 19 of them in the first half, keeping her team in the game.
Griffin logged a team-leading nine boards.
Veteran Belinda Snell scored 11, all in the second quarter when she spearheaded Bendigo's surge, and Sara Blicavs tallied 10.
"I thought that was our biggest problem, we didn't have enough scorers to stretch the defence," Bendigo coach Bernie Harrower told AAP.
"I thought we expended a lot of energy getting back into it in the second quarter after our poor start and we came out after halftime a little bit flat.
"We just seemed to lose the energy to run with them.
"They started making shots and once they get going and got the confidence up we couldn't stop them."
In Saturday's elimination semi-final, Sydney came from 18 down in the third quarter to win.
The Rangers lost Opals superstar Penny Taylor with an ankle injury in the third quarter, with Dandenong coach Mark Wright saying she would not have been fit for the preliminary final, even if his team had qualified.
He gave credit to a Sydney side inspired by veteran forward Rohanee Cox, who scored a game-high 24 points and was nigh unstoppable in the final quarter.
WNBL PRELIMINARY FINAL at Bendigo Stadium, Sunday March 1
BENDIGO V SYDNEY
Ladder positions: Bendigo 2nd, Sydney 4th
Season records (including semi-finals): Bendigo 15-8 Sydney 12-11
Head-to-head season record: Bendigo 2 Sydney 1
Results of head-to-head matches (home team first):-
Sydney 74 Bendigo 85, round 8
Bendigo 60 Sydney 67, round 10
Sydney 83 bendigo 95, round 15
