FEBRUARY 2019, The Central Coast Academy of Sport Club Terrigal Basketball program has produced some of the regions most successful up and comings athletes over many years and 2019 has seen the continuation of that impressive trend.
The Country Tour, held annually in January is often seen as an important first step in the representative pathway for NSW Country athletes and the CCAS had no less than fifteen athletes head to Albury to battle the heat as well as the many talent basketball players in attendance. Following the competition in Albury a number of CCAS athletes were then selected to higher order teams. Chelsea Vernon-Elliott, Brianna Kelly and Jade Yardley were chosen to the U15 Girls Southern Cross Challenge (SCC) team. The girls travelled to Victoria late January to the State Basketball Centre at Knox to compete against teams from Victoria Country and Metro, SA Country and Metro, WA Country and Metro, NSW Metro and the ACT. The SCC is a tournament designed to identify those on the performance pathway potentially leading to U16 NSW Country State team selection.
Kyla Fitzgerald and Dylan Tea gained selection to the U16 Australian Country Team, a team selected for the competing teams at Albury and while not a complete representative team it is one that offers selected athletes a great experience in the sport. The team’s will play in New Zealand late April.
Ian Robilliard the CCAS Managing Director said of the various selections: “Congratulations to the many selected athletes from the basketball squads to the numerous teams over the holiday period. This program continues to assist athletes wishing to advance their chance of state team selection and to see many achieve either SCC or the Australian Country selection bodes well for future selection to NSW Country representation. One aspect a little confusing is where these teams sit on the performance pathway and to be honest each is important in terms of being recognised as having the talent to advance to NSW Country team selection. It is very pleasing to see these athletes identified on the sports pathway. I’ll give a shout out to the coaches of this program, they have played an important role in helping these athletes advance their game to this level. I can’t really say thank you enough, as volunteers it remains the life blood of the organisation and full credit to them on these very pleasing results”.
