By Fatima Halloum
It had been 19 years since Wyndham last won the Big V men’s state championship grand final series, but that all changed in an exciting win on Saturday night.
After beating the Sunbury Jets 106-68 in the first of the best-of-three grand final series, Wyndham’s second 87-75 win on Saturday night secured their first title in almost two decades.
Coach Lucas Allen said the team had discussed the potential win throughout the season, and had hoped for the opportunity to create their own legacy.
“It’s always the best outcome when you finished on top and you’re the champions at the end of it,” he said.
“That’s obviously really important for our club, and our community.
“Our legacy is bigger than that team, it’s bigger than that moment, [it’s] about the whole community and the whole club.”
Allen said there had been a little bit of anxiety throughout the week, in preparing for the game and trying to anticipate what Sunbury would do, but once the match started, the worry eased.
“We played well enough to get ourselves an 18-point-lead in the third quarter and Sunbury did a really good job, they made some changes and bought it back to single digits,” Allen said.
“In the fourth quarter, we got it back out again to about 16 points which was a big enough lead for us to manage the last five or so minutes.
“It wasn’t requiring big time plays down the stretch, it wasn’t requiring us to do something out of the ordinary, we just had to stay solid, take care of the ball and keep control of the game.”
Allen said there was a focus throughout the year on building the team’s depth, providing the players with different opportunities and exposure, while also building a true Wyndham team.
“We weren’t relying on just a couple of guys to get it done,” Allen said.
“One of the major things when I first started recruiting players… was putting together a team that that truly represented the Wyndham community.
“You can’t have it all being exclusively Wyndham, but we did have eight of the 11 guys on the team either live in Wyndham or have come through the Wyndham pathway in terms of our juniors.
“It was our local guys getting it done so hopefully that becomes something the younger ones aspire and look up to, like ‘we can do that as well’.”
The club is hoping to use their win to put their case forward for promotion to the National Basketball League 1 competition.
The club’s women’s side also claimed the Big V women’s state championship title. Their youth league girls finished runners-up.
“We do understand that that’s generally a two year cycle and we’re in the middle of that two year cycle now,” Allen said
“So if we don’t get an opportunity to go up, it’s certainly about repeating and putting ourselves in the very best position to then go up as a club.”
