TWO junior Horsham girls basketball sides have competed strongly and finished runners-up in their respective divisions at the Naracoorte Junior Tournament at the weekend.
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The under-16 girls went into the tournament defending their division one title from last year and competed well to make the grand final.
They went down to Millicent in a close final.
Coach Damien Kilpatrick said he was pleased the team’s development.
“We didn’t expect them to make a grand final after we saw the tough draw so it was a good result,” he said.
“It’s starting to come together with this team and we are starting to get results. We are winning more games than we lose and we are definitely seeing signs of improvement.”
A big moment for the side came when they beat the highly fancied Portland team.
“This year we came up against a lot stiffer competition and I was hoping to win two out of our four games,” Kilpatrick said.
“We weren’t expecting to beat Portland, a team that has just come back from the state division one and two championships. We ended up beating them by one point. This team had never beaten Portland before so that’s a good indication of where we are at.”
The under-16 girls will now prepare for the division three and four state championships to take place in Bendigo in a few weeks time.
“This was our lead-up tournament to the state championships and we will take a lot of good points from it,” Kilpatrick said.
The under-14 girls also had a very strong weekend and survived an over-time game in the semi finals to come up against Millicent in the grand final. They went down 38-17 in a low-scoring game.
Coach Nicole Lakin said she was glad with how the team has gelled together across the season.
“They went really well, from where we started at the start of the season the whole team has progressed extremely well. Seeing them with smiles on their faces was fantastic,” Lakin said.
“We went testing ourselves because I knew Millicent had won a lot of other tournaments so I wanted to see where we were at with them.
“We went down in the grand final but we had a fantastic game before that in the semi-finals winning in over time. We will work really hard this next month before we go to state championships and try to perfect a few other things.”
Horsham also had under-12 boys and girls and under-14 boys development sides all attend the tournament and compete strongly.
