Courtesy of the Colac Herald.

Colac Basketball Association is preparing to join forces with surrounding leagues in an effort to revive women’s basketball.

Delegates from Colac, Camperdown, Terang and Timboon hope to introduce a higher-standard regional competition next summer, similar to the Country Basketball League.

Colac has fielded just three A Grade sides this season and plans for a Colac senior representative side to contest the Ballarat Senior Tournament fell through due to limited interest.

Camperdown, Terang and Timboon are enduring similar dwindling trends.

“The plan is to possibly have one or two teams competing from Colac against surrounding districts, in addition to the regular weekly competition,” association treasurer Peter Lemke said.

“We’re hoping the higher standard of basketball will attract more women to get involved,” he said.

“We haven’t had an under-18 representative side for a number of years – we’ve always had three or four that were keen but not a full side – so we’re hopeful of getting some of the juniors involved with senior players like Rachel Rodger to teach them.”

Talented Colac basketballers Rodger, Tegan McNamara, Bree McKenzie and Emma and Chelsea Hillman were set to play in the Ballarat Senior Tournament before plans fell through, and would be valuable inclusions for a Colac team should plans go ahead.

Officials hoped a regional competition could lead to entering a side in the Country Basketball League, following in the footsteps of Colac’s senior men’s team which finished equal third this season.

“This is basically a stepping stone, we’re hoping to get it bedded down and see how it goes, what interest we get, then it could lead to us having a Western District CBL team,” Mr Lemke said.

“The men’s competition is going well, now we want to work in the women’s basketball in Colac,” he said.