May had a run in the Harvey Norman Rush’s first practice match at the weekend, just days after finishing her WNBL commitments with Melbourne Boomers.

Predominantly on the Boomers’ bench this season, May is expected to earn major minutes with Rush in the South East Australian Basketball League season.

Rush coach Peter Cunningham said May was extremely fit and disciplined – she just needed to sharpen her match fitness and could hardly wait to get started.

Boomers teammate Shenae Greaves, unavailable for Saturday night’s hit-out, started training with Rush last week and the pair will be joined by fellow Boomer Liv Thompson at the Mars Minerdome soon.

Thompson is spending time with family in the break between seasons.

Rush was vastly undermanned for its game against Big V club Ringwood, a team filled with former seasoned SEABL players that is close to launching its season.

Guard Abbey Wehrung was rested in her return from WNBL duty with Canberra Capitals, Sophie Alexander (shoulder) and Ryleigh Haire (ankle) were rested as a precaution, and Kasey Burton has national under-20 championships.

The coach said a practice match this far out from their April 10 season opener was a luxury.

“We know we’re fit; we’ve done a lot of work on fitness and conditioning. Now it’s about specific

basketball work,” he said. “We have a benchmark on what we need to work on in scrimmage and can lift that scrimmage intensity.”

Cunningham was impressed with Claire Blower’s improved fitness, intensity and game sense. He expected Blower to play a key role in Rush’s Youth League team this season, which starts next month.

Former Ballarat junior Eliza Roughead, from Maryborough, has returned after a season’s hiatus and is quickly rebuilding game sense, and Maggie Baker, transferring from now-defunct Warrnambool Mermaids, has trained the past two weeks with Rush.