Sharon Fedke has the best of both sports

Fedke, 44, grew up playing both sports, although basketball always took precedence until she moved to the Wimmera eight years ago.

A former Big V player with Geelong and Echuca, Fedke carved a name for herself as a basketballer over a 15-year period and was named in the league's top-50 female players of the past 20 years.

The decision to concentrate on netball was made for Fedke when she moved to Horsham with her husband Peter and children Jordan and Taylor.

Horsham didn't field a women's Big V team.

She joined Wimmera Netball Association club Horsham United where she plays a vital role in the Diggers' B Grade goal ring.

"I can honestly say basketball was always my favourite sport, but because I have made a switch, I have put more effort into my netball, which sounds funny because I am only playing B Grade," Fedke said.

"I will always love basketball, it runs through my veins, it's in my blood and it always will be, but I have a different appreciation for netball now.

"I have had some great coaches in Jodie Potter and Viv Hiscock, two stalwarts of Horsham United, and I learned a lot from those two girls. Then in the past 12 months having Jacqui Norris and Liz Reddie, they have been absolutely brilliant.

"And my experiences too during this time with Gayle Leith. Gayle has been a big supporter of mine and she's been a wealth of knowledge and I respect her as a coach.

"I just feed off her knowledge and I just love watching her coach. I have learned a lot from people in the Wimmera."

Fedke plans to play in the Wimmera association until she's 50 or until her love of the game wanes.

"I love game day. I'm not fond of training but this year I must admit under the two coaches, Liz and Jacqui, I hardly missed any training," she said.

"I'd whinge and moan about getting to training but once I got there it was fine. Sometimes I didn't want to go home, I wasn't satisfied, I wanted to keep training.

"I love game day. I love everything about it. I love the excitement, I get nervous every Saturday but the adrenaline kicks in and I love challenge and I love the competition."

Fedke still plays domestic basketball and coaches Horsham Amateur Basketball Association's under-16 girls' squad.

When she arrived in the Wimmera, Fedke said the wealth of talented female basketballers was evident ? the pull of netball meant it would have been too difficult to form a Horsham women's Big V team.

"I reckon I could have put a list together, a team of girls, and we could have competed in Big V division one, they were that good," Fedke said.

"But they wanted netball. They were too netball-orientated and this was sort of the issue with Echuca in the last few years I was there ? we were struggling to get numbers. We'd go away with five players because no-one wanted to travel. I think if there was a competition here I would have played but to have to try to build it from scratch would have been a lot of hard work.

"I think I was at a point, with my kids and what I had done, where I thought maybe it's time to step back, as much as it sort of killed me to do that."

Fedke, born and bred in Swan Hill, started making Vic Country basketball teams when she was 12.

Those pathway programs led her to the Big V, where she carved an enviable individual career.

Team success eluded her, as it has on the netball court where she has played in three losing Wimmera association grand finals with Horsham United.

"I didn't get a lot of success with basketball. We were always kind of outside of the top. One year it was the top four and we were fifth, another year it was the top six and we were seventh," Fedke said.

"In Geelong we were in the finals every year, and while I was with Echuca we didn't make any VBL finals, we were always just out of the mix."

Fedke missed out on a spot in the Big V women's team of the past 20 years, by one vote.

"I was in the top-50 of nominations and then they broke it down and got a team of 10," she said.

"I had a friend say to me 'oh you did really well', and I said 'oh, you think, I didn't make it'.They said 'you only missed out by a vote, you were number 11'.

"I thought maybe you shouldn't have told me that. It was nice to know, but also heart-breaking to know that I was that close and yet that far away."

Fedke credits her versatility for allowing her to play representative basketball ? a trait she tries to instil in the teams she's coached, which have included all junior Horsham female and male sides and at Big V level as an assistant with Horsham Hornets under Owen Hughan and in Echuca.

"With basketball I was taught from a young age to play every position, so I can step out and shoot a three or I can go inside to the post," she said.

"At club level and association level, I was always a tall player but then I got to state level and I was short. If I went there to try to be a centre or a post player, I wouldn't have made it because there were 12 or 13 year olds who were six foot."

Fedke has witnessed the decline of basketball in Horsham, as it has in many other regional areas.

She is hopeful Horsham can continue to field a team at Big V level but is wary of tough times ahead.

"They are going to struggle for a while definitely but they need to persist with it. You need to have a mix of experience and youth," she said.

"Because you have to do your time, and that comes from Owen's philosophy and we know what a brilliant coach he was.

"The juniors need to do their time on the bench and yes they need to get court time but they need to have that balance of experience with the youth.

"It is a completely different level from juniors to Big V because you are playing against men and they're big men."

Fedke said the introduction of a Country Basketball League side as a development tool was a positive.

"If they are going to keep the Big V team going then they need to have a CBL team. Those kids are only going to benefit from the CBL. The competition is still going to be really, really tough but it's the only way they're going to get experience," she said.

"Just playing here domestically is not going to give them that experience and even playing in their own age group at tournaments is not going to give them that experience.

"Hopefully it can be a stepping stone. It's going to sort out the kids who can cope with it and the kids who can't."