LEADING THE WAY
The Sydney Uni Flames forward, who pulled on a Mustangs’ singlet in 2008, will return to the Maitland Federation Centre in 2011 as the coach of a re-formed Waratah Australian Basketball League team.
And she is likely to bring at least one Women’s National Basketball League player with her, in the form of Mustangs junior and Flames teammate Mikaela Dombkins.
The return would allow Dombkins to reunite with her sisters on the court, with Rebekah, a former Mustang, and Mattea, a 2010 Mustangs youth league player, also likely to join the senior side.
Porter’s signing is a major coup for the Maitland Basketball Association, which has not fielded a women’s team in the Waratah league for two years.
The Mustangs women, led by Porter, had one of their most successful
seasons in 2008, falling fractionally short of a spot in the play-offs, but failed to field a team in 2009 and 2010.
Next season Porter will attempt to make up for lost time and the Mustangs women will look to follow in the footsteps of their male counterparts, who in 2010 secured a maiden appearance in the Waratah League grand final.
Off the back of that success the Mustangs women will try to surge ahead, and not only on the basketball court.
The return of the Mustangs women’s team will also signal a resurgence of elite level female sport in the Maitland region.
Five of Maitland’s top grade men’s teams – Mustangs (basketball), Pickers (rugby league), Blacks (rugby union), Magpies (football) and Rams (hockey) – reached finals in their respective codes for the first time in the same year.
But there were no women’s teams – Mustangs (basketball), Strikers (hockey) or Magpies (football) – representing the city in top flight competitions.
Porter said it was vital for the Maitland region to contest high level female sport, especially for basketball.
She called upon all Mustangs, old and young, as well as any other interested female basketballers to join the club’s push in 2011 and said that other Flames players may even follow suit down the F3 freeway if time permits at the end of the WNBL in February next year.
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