EBONY Antonio is aiming to win a fourth Women's SBL championship with the Willetton Tigers before she signs off on her basketball career for the brave new world of the AFL.

Antonio was part of the three-peat for the Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers winning championships in 2009, 2010 and 2011 before spending two years with the Bendigo Spirit.

She has now returned to the Tigers and after the disappointment of losing last year's Grand Final to the Rockingham Flames, she is determined to claim a fourth championship on Friday night as Willetton takes on the Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves at Bendat Basketball Centre.

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Over the last two years, Antonio has combined her career with the Tigers with playing football both in WA last year with the Coastal Titans and now in 2016 with Swan Districts, and in the AFL Women's Exhibition matches for Melbourne against the Western Bulldogs.

That has been quite an effort and just how tough on her physically is best illustrated by her past week where she played in the Tigers' semi-final Games 2 and 3 against the Flames last Friday and Saturday nights before playing her WA Women's Football League grand final win for Swans.

Now this weekend after Friday night's SBL Grand Final, she will then fly out to Melbourne on Saturday morning to play in the last ever Women's Exhibition game that night for the Demons against the Bulldogs.

The 24-year-old has every reason to be completely exhausted come Sunday but before that she desperately is hoping her last SBL game is a Grand Final victory before another win with Melbourne on Saturday night.

"Having won my grand final with footy on Sunday and hopefully winning the championship here on Friday, and then getting the win with Melbourne on Saturday night would make for a pretty exciting two weeks for me. But for now I'm just excited to be playing this Friday night," Antonio said.

"Hopefully we win on Friday and we can celebrate, but I won't be able to celebrate as much as the other girls. I have to fly out the next day at 8 o'clock to head to Melbourne and play in the last ever women's exhibition game before the AFL competition starts properly next year."

Antonio actually can't explain just how she has been able to juggle playing two sports so successfully the last two years, but it's now come to a point she had to choose and the chance to be part of the new AFL Women's national competition next year was too hard to ignore.

"To be honest I laugh about it because I don’t know how I'm doing it. I just try to eat the right things, drink a lot of water and do all the right things to recover," she said.

"But every day I still laugh how I do get up to play both sports, but that's all part of the reason why I'm giving up SBL to focus on footy next year because it's all getting too much for my body as I'm kicking on these days. I'm not as young as I used to be."

Not only did Antonio play in the tough three-game series against the defending champion Flames during her football finals, she had the gruelling task of guarding three-time reigning MVP Sami Whitcomb.

Her job now won't be any easy against the Lady Wolfpack as she looks to shutdown Klara Wischer but she has worked hard to get her body as fresh as possible this week.

"It was always going to be tough against Rockingham but to win that Game 3 was very overwhelming to realise we actually mentally did it and physically did it. We are now really excited to take on Wanneroo in the Grand Final," Antonio said.

"Obviously going to three games and playing on Sami, she's an amazing athlete and she played awesome. I pulled up pretty sore from those three games and I had my footy Grand Final on Sunday so I was feeling a bit worse for wear, but I've done all I can this week to get up to play on Friday night."

Not only is this season going to be Antonio's last with the Tigers, but centre Louella Tomlinson and potentially several other teammates will also be moving on following Friday night's Grand Final.

Combine that with the pain of losing last year's Grand Final thriller to Rockingham and Antonio and Willetton are desperate to triumph on Friday night.

"After last year's loss we wanted to come out this year and redeem ourselves. Finishing third on the ladder and having to face Rockingham prior to the Grand Final meant it was always going to be tough to make it, but it's very exciting and special to be there now after beating Rockingham," she said.

"We now look forward to taking on Wanneroo who have had a fantastic season. They are going in pretty strong as well after their semi-final series so we are looking forward to taking them on come Friday night.

"With Lou moving on, she's going to Spain on Saturday and this will be my last year of SBL so obviously I would like to go out with a bang and finish on a high note by getting the win on Friday."

While deciding to leave the Tigers, the SBL and basketball in 2017 was a difficult decision for Antonio to make, the chance to focus on her football and be part of history with the AFL was something she simply couldn’t say no to.

"It was tough to give up basketball but pretty easy at the same. I've played a lot of basketball and I think my time's almost up, that's why I'm giving it away and I'm really looking forward to playing footy and doing it at the highest level I can to test my body out and seeing where I can go with that," Antonio said.

"I'm very excited to be part of it and I never thought it would be possible. I didn’t much about female footy except that I played when I was younger, but coming back home after being in Bendigo for two years I heard about the league and wanted to try something different.

"I gave footy a go and fell in love with it again, and then got involved with the Melbourne v Western Bulldogs exhibition games. Now there's a pathway and all the little girls playing these days can go all the way to AFL level. It's very exciting."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday