North Harbour Breeze coach Jody Cameron was naturally delighted with the performance of her team at the 2014 Womens Basketball Championships.

Despite trailing 22-9 to the Waikato Wizards after the first quarter of the Grand Final in Porirua, Cameron had faith in her young charges.

“Deep down I was quite upset with the start, that’s my nature, but you can’t display that feeling externally, I’ve learnt that as a coach.

They’ve also learnt in this tournament that some of the games are won down the track and not to turn off early. I’m proud of the team as they have learnt to grind through some serious situations I’ve never seen the team so nervous for such a long period of time, their maturity for a young team was amazing, they just stuck to the game plan. We had a few ups and downs including Morgan (Roberts) go out, one of our starters, early in the game.

Despite Roberts departing with an ankle injury the Breeze found their mojo in the second period restricting Waikato to just two field goals but scoring 17 points themselves to trail by just four points at half time, 30-26.

“They really trusted themselves and it was just one basket at a time, that game wasn’t won until the bitter end.

Small ball continued to work well for the Breeze, the four guards, and one forward line up causing the bigger Waikato team some headaches.

When asked about the guard heavy line up Cameron explained, “We found out almost by accident in pool play. We subbed Jaycin (Tini) in late in the game against Otago. We found if we went smaller we created mismatches at the offensive end, we were quicker, we could press up if we want to, we could play a mobile zone, so that was a conscious decision. We were always going to go big if that failed.”

Far from failing, the momentum stayed with Harbour as they built a 53-44 lead with six minutes remaining.

Waikato did reduce the lead to three points in the closing minutes but the Breeze stuck to their game plan, converted their free throws and closed out the game 62-56.

Cameron was also delighted to have her good friend Noni Wharemate alongside her as assistant coach. Cameron and Wharemate have had many shared experiences as players with both the Tall Ferns and Harbour Breeze but this was the first time they had partnered as a coaching team.

“Noni brings a wealth of experience, she has got a lot of mana and the girls respect her, she’s a well known ex Tall Fern. She has charisma and we speak the same language. I missed not having Justine (Reed) here, she has a high basketball IQ, but having Noni giving the same message but not from the same ogre certainly made my job easier.”

For Cameron the WBC was her second championship victory in four weeks, having also led the North Harbour Under 17’s to their national title in July.

Receiving the WBC Coach of the Year award was the icing on the cake for the double title winner.

Final score;

Harbour Breeze 62 – Brooke Blair 16, Tera Reed 12, Shinae Blair 10, Jaycin Tini 10

Waikato Wizards 56 – Jess Tuki 11/11, Krystal Leger-Walker 11

Story by Mike Lacey