Elle Hendershot of the Durham Palatinates has won the Molten WBBL Player of the Month award for April after leading her team through a dramatic final month of the regular season that saw them reach the verge of the WBBL Play-offs only to fall agonisingly short.

Durham made a brave push for the post-season over the final month of the regular campaign, going 4-5 and finishing with a 9-14 record, level with the seventh-placed Cardiff Met Archers and North East rivals Newcastle Eagles, but missing out on a rare three-way head-to-head.

In eight games in the month, their captain led that pursuit from the front and amazingly averaged near a triple-double with 14 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists per game, also nabbing four steals per outing, while shooting 56% from the field.

In her penultimate game of the season she recorded that elusive triple-double that she had previously been close to numerous times, with a huge 19 points, 18 rebounds and 12 assists in victory over Oaklands Wolves – a crucial win as it kept their post-season hopes alive going into the final day.

Durham had played two North East derbies against Newcastle in April, losing the first by five but dramatically taking the head-to-head in the home game by winning 75-69 as Hendershot posted 16 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds and five steals in what was a hugely significant result at the time.

Her highest scoring game of the month came with 21 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists and five steals in Durham’s second biggest winning of the season, 91-59 on the road at Nottingham Wildcats, in a game that sparked a run of four wins in their last six games – their best form of the season.

Overall for the year, the Texas native forward is fifth in the WBBL for assists (5.9 per game), fifth in rebounds (9.9), fourth in steals (2.7) and eighth in field goal percentage (48.5%), while playing the second highest minutes of any player in the league.