ARARAT Basketball Association will not field a women’s senior team or any junior girls’ squads for the upcoming 2018-19 basketball season.
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Association president Donna Dunmore said it was disappointing but there weren’t enough players to field teams.
“We don’t have the players unfortunately and we struggle with all of our girls from juniors to seniors,” she said.
“The senior women we had last year hadn’t played for four or five years so it was an experience for them.
“Some are moving away for university and others have too many work commitments, so we just couldn’t put a team together.
“Last year was our first season after 17 years away so we are very raw still.”
Ms Dunmore said the association would be aiming to field teams for the following season.
“We had three junior girls’ teams last season and finding coaches has always been a problem too,” she said.
“There are too many other sports to choose from and we lose a lot of girls to dancing. We will work on it and we lose junior teams every second year because they change age groups. Next year we will have the girls’ squad teams again.”
The association has also named Marcus Jenkins as coach of the senior men’s side for the 2018-19 Country Basketball League season.
“Our coach was recently coaching in Ballarat with the Big V team there and he has brought a lot of enthusiasm to the team,” Ms Dunmore said.
“We have had a couple of training sessions and have been getting 17 to training.
“We have some guys travelling back from Ballarat for the season and Zac Dunmore just received the encouragement award for the senior elite team for the Ballarat Miners.
“We also have very strong numbers for the junior boys’ squads and will have four teams.”