In her words – Sevenoaks Suns star Renee Busch –…

Ahead of the season-ending WBBL Play-off Finals, we caught up with Sevenoaks Suns stalwart Renee Busch, who contributed this special column looking ahead to the event.

Our first Play-off final (in 2017) was huge. That was my
first season playing for the club and I joined the team halfway through the
year. We had won the WBBL Trophy earlier that year but, honestly, we had no
expectations going into that final and ended up winning it!

That may have been my favourite ever final. I remember just
going into it and really wanting to take it all in.

I was so happy to be playing at that point and have been that way since, because I had gone from an office job that I didn’t enjoy to playing basketball for a career, which I loved, and it was just such a special time. We only had two or three pros on the team, and a load of really exciting young players, but I remember it just being so free and really fun.

Now, going into our fourth Play-off final, we’ve just grown
so much in that time. We’re almost a fully professional team – if we were to
play ourselves now against that team we’d be so much better than them.
Everything is on another level now compared to what it was four years ago and
we’ve come so far.

I get ‘nervous’ before every game – my heart beats faster
and my hands are all antsy, ready to go – but it is about how you channel that
energy, because it just means something important is about to happen, and I
keep telling myself I’m just excited and I’m ready.

The WBBL Trophy Final wasn’t very enjoyable for us, but it
was a huge growth experience and a great opportunity for us to look at each
other and ourselves and ask how we’re going to be better and how we bounce
back. London have stepped the level up, but the experience has brought us all
even closer together. You can’t win forever, so it is a real opportunity for us
to rise.

It has showed us that sometimes we get away from what we’re
best at, which is being a defensive-focused team – that is what we’re best at –
and we want to be the best team on May 15^th. We can take a lot of
confidence from our last game against London because we were there with them,
and we’re capable of winning for sure.

Nothing is promised, you don’t know what is next, but this
group has been really special to all of us and I’ve really tried to enjoy every
single moment of being together, because what we’ve got here is a sisterhood,
it’s special, it doesn’t happen often that players stay in the same place for
so long.

We know a huge challenge lays in front of us on Sunday but
we believe we can beat them. We’ve played them five teams and learned a little
bit more and gotten better every time. I believe in myself, my teammates and my
coaches. If we put our best performance out there then I definitely believe we
can do it.