Open Girls Basketball

Our Open Girls Basketball team recently competed in the CHS Western Riverina Gala Day, which was also the qualifying tournament for the Southern Zone Finals.

In our first game against RAP (combined central schools), the girls got out to a fast start and kept on with it. The score was 28-13 at half-time. NHS kept the scoreboard pressure up to run out 55-20 victors. Bellah, Gemma and Zoe led the way with scoring with the fast breaks with their fast breaks enabled by the other girls’ rebounding and quick passing in transition.

In the second game we came up against Kooringal High School, not quite knowing what to expect from a much bigger school than ours. After the first big win the girls were fired up and led 22-8 at half-time. The final score of 40-14 put us through to the knockout final and a chance at going to the Southern Zone Finals tournament in May. We had good scoring contributions from Bellah, Zoe, Gemma, Hannah and Sarah and great work in defence from Tameika and Charlie.

The final brought us up against Tumut, who had won their pool matches 49-14 and 47-12. After the first two big wins and then a break, the girls were perhaps a little relaxed and Tumut got out to an early lead. We trailed 10-15 at quarter-time, but the girls refocused in the break and went out to get back in the game. Skye (8 points) and Sarah (7 points) worked hard under the basket and the whole team played amazing defence to bring us back in front, and at half-time it was 29-23 our way.

It was not over yet. The margin was narrow and Tumut had a talented team of players who were not ready to give up. But our girls kept playing hard, and the fast breaks kicked back in off the back of rebounding and good passing and running. Gemma led our scorers with 8 points for the quarter as we increased the lead to 44-32 at three-quarter time. From there it was a matter of holding our nerve and playing basketball the way we can, and we held Tumut to 1 point for the quarter while scoring 12. Hannah finished her NHS basketball career with a three-pointer in the last minute and 13 points for the game to put the exclamation mark on the win. Sarah finished with 12 for the game, Bellah had 10 and Skye had 8 points to lead our scorers.

The final score of 56-33 put NHS through to the Southern Zone Finals for the second year in a row, where we will play off in May for a spot in the State Finals Tournament.

Team spirit with Tumut and NHS doing a combined team photo after the final

Rebecca Rowlings

Girls Basketball Coach