THE Bendigo Spirit’s Kristi Harrower capped off the Australian Opals International Challenge with an impressive 18-point performance against Japan on Friday night at Dandenong Stadium.Harrower, who played in all three of the Opals’ matches from Wednesday to Friday last week, found her best form in Dandenong in the final match.“It was the best game for me,” she said.“Finally I started to hit a couple of shots in the Dandenong game and was aggressive with putting up shots in the first half.“I wasn’t as aggressive with my shooting in the second half.”The Opals excited Bendigo fans on Wednesday night with a 35-point win against the Japanese team, which Harrower said was fantastic for basketball fans in her home town.“Now that I’m playing in Bendigo with the Spirit, people here can see that I’m just a normal person and any fan can come up to me. I don’t feel like I’m under pressure to perform, but it’s all about being a good role model here in Bendigo.“I hadn’t played with an Australian team at home in Bendigo since 1998.“It’s great now because Bendigo is really starting to get behind women’s basketball.“Bendigo probably had the biggest crowd, but Dandenong was also fairly packed out.”The following games in Geelong and Dandenong were closer encounters for the Opals, with the Australian team winning the Geelong match by only 10 points and the Dandenong match by 13 points.“After the Bendigo game, the Japanese team became really aggressive both in offense and defence,” she said.“The last two games we didn’t win by a great deal, so we were a bit disappointed about that.“But it was fantastic to play on our home soil as we really don’t get many opportunities to play in Australia.”Harrower hopes international basketball will return to Bendigo in future.“The standard of playing WNBL and international basketball is completely different, so it’s great that Bendigo fans had the opportunity to see it,” she said.“We’re now pretty much offshore with the rest of our international games this year. “We only really get one series in Australia each year, so it would be great if Bendigo is included.”