Over the middle weekend of the holidays we had 6 girls represent South Canterbury in the Mainland Basketball Tournament in Rolleston. Emily Cooney, Kayla Proudfoot, Briar Craig, Sally Cooney, Elie Craig and Abbie Joyce. 

Here are a few words from the coaches.

The U15 Girls Black team - was a strong squad of girls who always had 100% effort. We attended a few tournaments having wins and losses in Gore, Rangiora and Dunedin before going unbeaten in Invercargill and then heading to Mainlands. At Mainlands we had a pool of Marlborough (B), West Coast, North Canterbury, Canterbury Red and our toughest game in pool play, Otago. Having 5 from 5 wins pushed us through directly to the final on Monday against Marlborough (A). Over the season and at Mainlands specifically we lost players due to injury with our normal 12 player squad down to 9 for final which was something we had to quickly adapt to. 

The final proved to be a very closely contested battle, we were fortunate to have three of their dominant players foul out early third quarter. This put us slightly on the upper hand to this tight contest. Still continuously fighting the girls, led with a calm cool collected captain Emily Cooney stuck to what we knew and kept pushing through. Winning the final 56-50 was an amazing accomplishment for this bunch of well deserved girls. 

A huge thanks to Nicole Cooney for everything you do both visible and behind the scenes as well as Sarah Keen!! Unfortunately Coach Sean Fuller was absent from this tournament but I’d like to thank him so much for the smarts and learnings he’s given me as well as the opportunity. - Coach Mia Daly

U15 Girl’s Green Team. The girls had a great few days away, they placed 10th. Girls have practised hard all season and have progressed throughout the representative season. Girls played some very good basketball against some tough teams and displayed excellent sportsmanship throughout as well as great skills and shooting. - Coach Jemma Bower

The U18 SC Girls played the West Coast, Nelson and Canterbury playing each other twice. The first round results were wins against Nelson 62-38, Canterbury 78-32, and West Coast 52-29. 

Our game was built on aggressive defense and fast breaks. In the second round against Nelson we got off to a slow start ,with them matching us all over the court. Down by 16 points, we started the come back and clawed back to get the lead by 5 with a couple of minutes remaining, holding them off by one point 53-52. Canterbury was next in the morning, and we wanted to put a solid game together. Which we had done, scoring a dominant 97-21 win. During this game, we were notified that West Coast had to default due to illness in their team. Going undefeated was a good result for this team. 

Totally loved coaching this team, who always gave 100% and played hard and fair at all times. Big thank you to Beck Narayan for managing this team and all the hard work that goes with that. And parents for the help and support all year - Coach Ryan Coombes