Izzy Borlase admits her homecoming will be “bittersweet”, given she left her former side because it was in limbo.<\/p>\n
The star guard will take on the Adelaide Lightning for the first time on Tuesday night after signing with the Bendigo Spirit in the off-season.<\/p>\n
She left her hometown after the Lightning’s former owners relinquished the club’s licence, forcing her to become a free agent.<\/p>\n
Borlase was swept up by Spirit coach Kennedy Kereama and courted by senior players Marianna Tolo and Kelsey Griffin before she made the move. <\/p>\n
Now, she’s found Bendigo to be the “best fit” and a decision she is yet to regret.<\/p>\n
Still, leaving Adelaide was no easy task, even if the club changed radically from the one Borlase knew.<\/p>\n
The South Australian government and the WNBL’s new owners stepped in to fund the side in May, and the club was saved.<\/p>\n
But Borlase had told two of her closest friends, Tayla Brazel and Steph Talbot, she was going to Bendigo.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to bring a championship home. I wanted to do that with Steph, and it’s sad we didn’t get to do that,” Borlase told AAP.<\/p>\n
“It’ll be exciting to play against them, but that hasn’t happened in a while, so it might feel a bit funny.<\/p>\n
“Adelaide rebranded their whole identity. It’ll be bittersweet.”<\/p>\n
Brazel says the move was unsurprising as Borlase was aiming to make the WNBA next year.<\/p>\n
The pair have grown up as best mates, playing basketball from the age of 12 and living only streets away from each other.<\/p>\n
Brazel missed playing a final season with her best friend after being sidelined with an ACL injury.<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, she has to do what’s best for her, and I knew it wasn’t going to change our friendship. It was obviously not great, but it is what it is,” Brazel told AAP.<\/p>\n
“We’re super competitive with one another. We’re happy to be playing against each other now.”<\/p>\n
Now that Brazel is at full strength, she is eager to test herself against Borlase, who is averaging 20.8 points per game, the second most in the WNBL.<\/p>\n
“Being one of my good friends, I’m happy to see her thriving and doing really well. But, when the time comes, I’m going to try and stop that,” Brazel said.<\/p>\n
“Coming back from my second ACL, I just really felt like staying home was right for me.<\/p>\n
“I definitely am a lot stronger physically. Maybe if I hadn’t done my ACL, I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Izzy Borlase admits her homecoming will be “bittersweet”, given she left her former side because it was in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-289786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}