Willetton Tigers WSBL captain Desiree Kelley says she is excited to get back in front of a home crowd this weekend.

The Tigers will take on Lakeside Lightening this Saturday for their first home game of the season.

“I am really excited to be back at Willetton, there was a moment there when we thought we would be playing at Curtin so that was kind of a shock, but it was good news to hear we were playing at Willetton again this season before the expansion,” Kelley said.

“It will be really good to get back into our home court and have our crowd there, there’s nothing like home court advantage so I’m really looking forward to it.”

The women started their preseason training before Christmas last year, looking to improve their overall strength and fitness in preparation for this year.

“We threw a new element into our preseason training and we have been working with a strength and conditioning coach and we were doing that three times a week so that was exciting to expand all of our fitness, not just on the court,” Kelley said.

“We have been trying to focus more on our speed (because) before we get our imports we are kind of a small side in terms of size so really trying to use our speed to our advantage and tire teams out.”

And after an extended preseason, Kelley said she is happy to be back on the court putting all the hard work into action.

“It does feel really good especially with such a long preseason I think you anticipate that first game and I was very nervous for the first game, it’s kind of everything you’ve done leading up to that game, you’re going to put what you practice into a game momentum so it was really good to get back out there,” Kelley said.

The Tigers will take on Lakeside Lightening this Saturday at Willetton Basketball Stadium, at the new family friendly time of 5pm tip-off for WSBL followed by the MSBL at 7pm.

“This week at training we just went through all of our offences again and made sure that we’re all on the same page and knew where our shots were going to come from and where they’d be executed from and again with our defence because that’s a really strong point of ours too,” Kelley said.

“It will be good to put that into show this weekend against Lakeside because they’ll definitely be a tough opponent.”