Junior basketballers on the Surf Coast will have more to aspire to, with the Surfcoast Basketball Association introducing senior representative teams for the upcoming season.
The Surfcoast Chargers will join the statewide Big V basketball league for the 2022 season, with both men’s and women’s teams joining fellow Geelong-based teams Bellarine and Corio Bay in the competition.
Surfcoast Basketball Association president David Scott said it was a logical step for the growing association to introduce senior representative teams.
“The domestic men’s and women’s competitions have been going well, so it made sense,” he said.
“It was ultimately a decision by the board to continue the pathways for our juniors to continue their basketball.
“We have record numbers of juniors, we’ve seen about a 20 per cent increase on last year, and so we want to ensure they have the pathway to continue playing basketball at a high level as they grow.
“Now with the senior teams, they’ll have something to aim for and will be able to continue playing locally.”
The senior Chargers teams will play their first games in the Big V in March next year.
Scott said the association had been holding tryouts for the teams and received a lot of interest.
“The quality and numbers at the men’s tryouts has been very strong,” he said.
“There’s been some good numbers for the women too, but we’re encouraging anyone who may be interested to come and have a go.
“There’s a lot of good players who live around the Surf Coast, so we’ll have good representation on the court.”
The new teams cap off what has been a period of strong growth for the association, which has only existed for three years.
“Basketball on the Surf Coast was council-run up until three years ago and then it switched to us,” he said.
“We wanted to provide the Surf Coast with the opportunity to play basketball and provide that exercise option and promote health and wellness.
“The domestic program is going well, we have around 170 junior teams this year and we’ve just launched our first under-eights competition last week.
“We’re also increasing our junior representative teams – we had three teams in the Victorian Junior Basketball League and this year that will jump up to nine or so.
“And we’ve also got the new $13.5 million stadium in February, so it’s been a busy time for the association and we’re being kept on our toes.”
Scott said population growth in the region and COVID had increased the appetite for local basketball.
“Obviously the population is growing quite quickly down this way and with COVID, people are wanting to get back out and do things, so we’re seeing a lot of interest,” he said.
“I think the Olympics this year also helped renew interest in basketball and having the new stadium is a big help too.
“We’re anticipating that there’s going to continue to be further growth, so we’re looking at how we will expand the competition and other programs we could offer, like three-on-three and mixed competitions.
“We just want to see the sport continuing to grow on the Surf Coast.”
