THE Horsham Hornets will move back into the South West conference for the upcoming Country Basketball League season, joining region rivals Ararat.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Hornets switched from South West to North West for the 2017 season. The North West conference was formed in 2017-18 with the Hornets claiming a drought-breaking championship at the start of this year.
The Hornets will feature in the South West conference alongside Ararat, Bacchus Marsh, Bellarine, Colac, Geelong, Hamilton, Mt Gambier, Portland, Terang and Warrnambool.
A similar move will be made by the Lady Hornets, although less teams feature in the women’s South West conference.
However, the women’s North West conference has now been combined with North East and features nine teams.
The Lady Hornets, who will be coached by Damien Kilpatrick, will face Bellarine, Colac, Geelong, Millicent, Portland, Terang and Warrnambool in South West.
Hornets coach Cam Bruce said it would be interesting to move conferences.
“Mt Gambier is usually pretty strong and we created a good rivalry with those guys ever since we joined South West,” he said.
“They always seem to have our measure in the grand final and we made the grand final in 2016 in South West, so we have always been competitive in that conference.
“It will freshen things up so you‘re not playing teams over and over. Having 11 teams to play will make it motivating for the guys.
“There will be a fair bit of travelling but hopefully they fixture us some double-headers in areas where there are teams close to each other. The travel is a part of the fun, though, it brings people together.”
Bruce said the upcoming season would be the first time the Hornets would have played against the Ararat Redbacks.
“We used to play Stawell so it will be interesting and I don’t know too much about their players at this stage,” he said.
“Hopefully we can create a local rivalry and it would be great for the region to have two teams going well.”
South West teams Bacchus Marsh, Bellarine, Hamilton and Warrnambool will all be making their Country Basketball League debut in the 2018-19 season.
