Tara Murray
Wyndham will have not one, but two teams represent the association at the National Junior Classic this weekend.
Both teams will compete in the invitation-only event, that is capped at 16 teams per age group, with invitations to the classic extended to the top interstate teams and the highest-ranking eligible Victorian Victorian Junior Basketball League teams and selected Junior Country championships winning teams.
It’s the second straight season the under-18 boys have qualified for the tournament. They will be joined by the under-14 boys this year.
Wyndham coaching lead Lucas Allen said it’s the first time in recent memory they’ve had two teams qualifying in the same year.
“It’s a good sign of the continued growth we have.”
Allen said much of the under-18 team had been part of the team last season as bottom agers.
They still qualified despite losing their best player Roor Akhuar to the Centre of Excellence at the AIS.
He said last year they finished middle of the pack.
Under-14 boys coach Andrew Hack said it was a pretty big achievement for the side.
“Considering we started ranked at number 24 at the start of the season,” he said. “The top eight qualify and the rankings were off two years ago.
“We’ve played terrifically as a team and we’re absolutely stoked.”
The team has basically played together a couple of years ago in under-12s before being split through teams last season when they were bottom age.
They’ve added a couple of players to the squad from last time.
Hack said that Wyndham ran the same program throughout all their representative sides which made it easier to go between teams from home to year.
He said heading to the classic there was a bit of an unknown having never played some of the teams before.
“To make the top eight would be awesome,” he said. “It’s a pretty big achievement to get there to start with.”
