BEST AT BEING MAJOR PEST

Never-say-die attitude

STEPHANIE Reid’s attitude towards the 2020 WNBL season is simple.

Get on court and develop her game, do whatever she can to help the Fire win, and have a whole heap of fun doing so.

“I’m just excited to have the opportunity to play for this team and be part of it,” Reid said.

“Coming off the bench and being the pest I am. My only focus is to win, and do what I can to help our team to win.” Hang on, a pest?

“I hear it all the time,” Reid said with a laugh.

“Defensively, I’m a pain in the butt. My teammates tell me all the time (at training), but I’m happy to go out there and be the pest.”

But Reid has no qualms being the pest of the Townsville Fire roster, especially as her contributions on and off the ball have helped the side to a 5-2 record and well on track for a finals berth.

And if being a pest is the result of what coach Shannon Seebohm described as Reid giving her “heart and soul” to the team, well, the Flyers – her former club – better be ready for some frustration.

Reid was born in Melbourne, discovered at Mount Eliza and rushed into a superb four-year college career at the Bulls of University of Buffalo – during which she started all but two of her 116 games.

She returned to Australia via Dandenong Rangers in 2018, which was rebranded as Southside Flyers for 2019, before joining the Fire for the current campaign.

And while Reid might still be only new to Townsville, her love for North Queensland would be music to the ears of Fire officials.

“I’m loving it up here,” she said. “I was here for about six weeks before the season started and I love it up north, it’s my kind of place.”

Reid will face her former club, the Flyers, for the second time when the Fire plays its first games in Cairns on Saturday, and the 24-year-old