Another Australian Junior Country Cup is done and dusted, the annual tournament that took place in Albury from Monday 13^th of January to Saturday 18^th. The tournament is a great opportunity for bright and talented young basketballers from all over Australia to compete against each other and get a glimpse of what it takes to compete at the highest level.

 

Former Lakers Coach Dan Stratford (Sharks) and Mount Gambier’s own Bryan Green who coached the Magpies U16 Boys team were pleased with the week, Bryan said while the SA Country teams were significantly smaller and lacked the depth of talent to some of the other states the Mount Gambier athletes held their own particularly Mount Gambier Local Ben Young, ‘Ben Young was outstanding,  he was the captain of the Magpies team and led by the front,  playing in a different position due to injuries but still finished the week as the 4^th overall scorer,  his defensive efforts on much bigger opponents was fantastic.’ 

Bryan was also proud of his U16 Lakers point guard Zach Nulty, ‘Zach also performed well, coming back from a 3-month layoff with a knee injury, he performed to a high standard, controlling the court from the point position, I know his coach was very impressed with his efforts.’  

 

It was an exciting and nerve racking time for some of the Mount Gambier U14s who were attending the tournament for the first time, Cara Nulty, Ava Collins and Stella Mobbs played for the Magpies while Indi Lawrence and Macey Griffith were members of the Sharks team that finished fourth overall, Macey Griffith who took to the tournament like duck to water loved her first time experience and facing off against some of the best in her age group ‘I loved meeting new people and making new friends, the Tasmanian teams really were the toughest!’

U14 Laker Taj Brumby who played for the Magpies was tasked with many defensive assignments and showed a lot of composure over the week, his magpies side finished fourth overall.

 

Bryan Green noticed the SA Country teams will need to improve in some areas if they are going to be competitive in the future, ‘The Vic and NSW teams play a much more aggressive defence where they press up the floor and totally deny the wing catch,  forcing the offence to start much later into the shot clock which caused a lot of bad shots, we progressively got better with this throughout the week with counters to their defence but something we should be looking at in the future.’

Former Lakers that are based in Adelaide Rori Perryman and Lewis Stratford had solid weeks for their sides, Rori who now represents Sturt in Adelaide helped to lead her U16 Girls Sharks team to a top five finish.

The U18 girls finished the week with and all SA Country game for 5^th place, Claire Hunters Magpies took the 5^th place honours despite strong performances by Mount Gambier representatives Mikaela Horrigan, Sarah Nulty and Emily Dawe.

Claire Hunter who received a nasty black eye in the early parts of the tournament attended her 9^th and final Albury tournament, ‘It has been great to just play basketball and make new friends, it’s been a lot of fun I’ll miss it for sure next year.’

The experience has no doubt been a positive and a great opportunity to learn and develop for all of the Mount Gambier athletes.