On Thursday February 19^th, the Diamond Valley State Championship Women’s team suited up and took the court for their first practice match of their 2017 campaign, against the Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation Basketball team.

The pre-game message from Head Coach Dee Butler was simple, push the ball and run the lanes hard on offence, utilize our inside game and get after the ball, all whilst having a disruptive defensive approach.

Despite this being their second on court session for the year, the girls took the court side by side, ready to showcase some of their on-court talents. With Diamond Valley’s new recruit, Kate Oliver clearly winning the ball-up our starting 5 set the tone early on for the match.

With an organised attack style of play, our girls did a really good job at working the inside-outside game to generate the first few scores of the match. With some quick replies from the opposition, the girls knew that the challenge was set.

With a point for point battle in the first half, the girls knew that in order to stay in game they had to do their best, to match the work and physicality rate of our visitors. Second year player Courtney Wragg settled early on in the game, producing scores with such speed, strength and execution under pressure. Closely followed by Diamond Valley’s new signing, Amelia Smith, who set the defensive intensity tone early.

After a few unanswered baskets by the opposition, our girls went into the second half with a few extra tasks on hand. The message by halftime was to control the tempo of the game, after a producing a few consecutive erratic plays causing turnovers. Our girls knew it was important to take control despite the opposition turning up the heat on the defensive end. The defensive intensity and pressure placed on us by Chinese-Teipei was truly outstanding.

Having young guns from Diamond Valley’s Youth League team take the court, Sian Gillam, Sharna Ayres and Emily Ellis did a great job to withstand the continued pressure produced by the opposition. All producing great drives to the basket, using their speed to get up and down the floor and defensively keeping their players to minimal scores, and in some cases, even scoreless. Also taking the court was May Sa’aga, who being a great addition to the team, presented great strength and physicality on court.

However, after injecting quick rotations onto the court the visitors further increased their tempo, settling into the game and producing some outstanding finishes to further increase their lead. With Oliver’s early hand to the outside ball, their contested finishing both inside and outside the perimeter proved to be too strong.

Returning to the court, after sustaining season-ending injury last year, Selena Wawrzyniak showcased some outstanding play in her efforts to take control of the game and lead the younger Youth League players on court.

Despite the opposition having an extensive lead by the end of the 3^rd quarter, our girls were set with a final task of finishing the game by identifying and staying true to their strengths. With a final change of defensive play, the 3-2 zone meant the girls were able to control where the opposition scores were coming from, as well as forcing turnovers for our visitors. Gaining front position on rebounds our girls were able to take control of the possession game and come up with some much needed baskets from Pirini and Oliver.

Unfortunately our visitors proved to be too strong for our girls that night, going down with a 98 – 75 loss in a very hard fought battle. Post-match Coach Butler was really pleased with the team's work rate so early in the season and their ability to adjust and find ways to score against physical defence. A very exciting start for our Champ Women in 2017. 

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