Tara Murray
You have to look a little deeper than ladder position when judging Keilor Thunder’s National Basketball League 1 South women’s season.
The Thunder finished the season in 17th spot with just five wins, but it was an important first step for the future of the program.
Coach Trevor Burnette said he thought the season had been successful.
“I think if we were judging the season on wins and losses, it doesn’t look super successful,” he said.
“The amount of growth we’ve got into these young players, Keilor juniors. They played a lot of minutes.
“It was super successful. We finished off the season pretty good.”
The Thunder’s season was riddled by late arrivals of imports and injuries to key players, with Burnette rarely having a full squad to pick from.
He said despite that, they pushed a lot of the top sides especially in the back half of the season.
“We finished 2-2 and were still battling injuries,” he said. “We were without two of our starters the last four games.
“I think we were doing a good job with what we played with a lot of the time.
“We pushed some finals teams. We pushed really hard with the best of them and we nearly beat one of them.
“Every team had injuries, our injuries happened to key players when we really needed them in the next game.”
Just one player played all 22 games for the Thunder, in Macey Boyle.
Burnette said Boyle, Jaz Salon and Grace Graham really stood up towards the back end of the season.
He said Japanese import Juna Umezawa was really strong once she arrived, while Lana Hollingsworth showed her high level of play as captain.
Burnette said there was still plenty of development left in the group.
“The last six to seven games, Anna Clephane figured out how to play in this league, she played really well,” he said.
“Our oldest players on the roster was 27 and the next was 24 or 25, we were very young.”
Burnette said they had already started to look at next year’s squad. The young girl home grown players are set to be part of that.
“We will keep the core,” he said. “We will bring back eight or nine players.
“I think that is really important to do that. This year was a learning curve and how hard it is so stay focused all the time, not some of the time.”
Burnette said Salon was set to head to a D2 college in New Mexico, while Zoe Shaw had a number of college offers she was sorting through while she decides what her future holds.
Burnette said there might be the possibility for other players from the club’s Big V youth league side to make the step up and become development players with the squad next year.
