{"id":300000,"date":"2025-11-18T22:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300000\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:57:09","slug":"spirits-isobel-borlase-returns-to-adelaide-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300000\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirit’s Isobel Borlase returns to Adelaide in style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isobel Borlase has made a triumphant return to Adelaide, posting a double-double as the Bendigo Spirit inflicted an 82-74 win over her former WNBL side the Lightning.<\/p>\n

The Opals gun was integral to the 13-2 run across quarter-time that kickstarted the Spirit in Tuesday’s game, Borlase’s first against the Lightning since leaving in the off-season.<\/p>\n

“I was actually a bit nervous, to be honest. Going up against friends, I don’t really like doing, so it was nice to get the win,” said Borlase (24 points, 11 rebounds, five assists).<\/p>\n

The season’s second-most prolific scorer before tip-off, Borlase was into double digits less than a minute after quarter time, dominating the paint as the Spirit began to kick clear of their fast-starting hosts.<\/p>\n

Her most eye-catching play had come slightly earlier as she pounced on a quarterback-style pass up-court from captain Kelsey Griffin (18 points, 12 rebounds) for two points. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Borlase had three personal fouls by halftime but did well to adjust.<\/p>\n

“It’s actually kind of funny, I was talking to my dad today at lunch and he said he thinks I might get in some foul trouble today, so that’s on him,” she joked.<\/p>\n

The victory helps the defending champions shake off a disappointing loss to the Perth Lynx earlier in round five, while the Lightning have now lost back-to-back games.<\/p>\n

\"Kelsey
\n Kelsey Griffin shone horizontally and vertically as the Spirit overcame Adelaide. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“Anytime I felt like we kind of started to get some sort of momentum, they would hit a three or they’d get an and-one,” Lightning coach Kerryn Mitchell said of the loss to Bendigo.<\/p>\n

Veteran Steph Talbot (12 points, six assists) helped the Lightning strike early, scoring all of her side’s first seven points including a three-pointer from the left side of the arc within a minute of tip-off.<\/p>\n

But with Serena Sundell nursing a season-ending knee injury, the Lightning lacked consistent scoring punch.<\/p>\n

The visitors had their first lead of the game and forced a Lightning timeout late in the first period after Griffin’s three-pointer was followed by a Georgia Booth (11 points) lay-up in transition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bendigo never trailed after the first change and took a 16 point lead at the final break thanks to a 22-15 third term..<\/p>\n

A Borlase lay-up pushed the advantage to 20 points, before the hosts put some respectability on the scoreboard late on.<\/p>\n

“I thought the last minute and a half or two minutes was really good, and if we had’ve had that level of effort and intensity for more than two minutes, I think we’d maybe win,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

Opals centre Marianna Tolo (15 points, three offensive rebounds) was an important presence under the basket as the Spirit grabbed the first seven offensive rebounds of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isobel Borlase has made a triumphant return to Adelaide, posting a double-double as the Bendigo Spirit inflicted an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4,17956,17959,17954,3,17957,17955,17958,99,5986,434,965],"class_list":["post-300000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-inkl","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-sports","tag-today-news","tag-wnba","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}