Page 59 - BWA 2021 ANNUAL REPORT

REGIONAL
MIDWEST
Dan Hunt Regional Development Officer PLAY HARD, HAVE FUN
AND NEVER QUIT!
In the Midwest we set ourselves a goal to get back to being the competitive region we once were in juniors. The consensus from our coaches was that with the exceptions of a few very good teams as we had dropped off the pace a bit. How to fix this? Reach out to more athletes and work harder and smarter at training.
We had over 250 athletes try out for our Midwest representative teams. That is up nearly 100 from last year. Most teams started training twice a week instead of once. All teams trained over the Christmas school holidays.
The results were fantastic. We sent down 14 teams to BWA State Titles and 13 teams down to Country Champs. We made two grand finals at State Titles and won one. We played in six grand finals over four weeks at Country Champs winning one of those. Thanks to our amazing volunteer coaches and dedicated athletes we now consider ourselves competitive once again.
The Midwest Basketball Academy also produced big numbers this year with 122 basketball players turning up and working hard. All that hard work is paying off for our BWA State athletes. We had an unprecedented 51 athletes travel to Perth to try out for our WA State teams with 27 making squads.
With all the excitement around basketball we had a hard time accommodating all juniors leaving us with 200 players on the waiting list at the Geraldton Amateur Basketball Association. With the construction of four new courts, we will hopefully alleviate this problem for next season.
There was a great turn out for our first delivery of a Club Coaching course held in Geraldton. 18 people turned up for the course including a few that travelled all the way from Perth to attend. We also held Community Coaching Courses in Geraldton, Carnarvon and Exmouth which saw another 25 coaches upskilled.
In the Gascoyne we had a very busy season as well. In Carnarvon our after-school competition was once again a big success with over 30 players attending each session. One of the reasons for the success is the hard work being done in the school clinics. Stephen Michael Foundation has taken the lead with the school clinics and are doing an outstanding job. Thank you to PCYC for hosting the event in term 4.
We held our first High Performance program ever in the Gascoyne this year. Exmouth hosted over 20 U12 ballers that turned up and strutted their stuff. Lots of talent in the Gascoyne!
The premiere event in the Gascoyne was the Gascoyne Games 3x3 competition held in Exmouth. It was a huge success with 11 teams, 40 players across the U14 and U16 age groups for boys and girls as well as an U18/Open Men’s competition turning up and putting on a show. There is now a push to run the competition annually in different towns across the Gascoyne. This could be huge!!!
That’s a wrap for 2021!
“We had over 250 athletes try out for our Midwest representative teams”
BWA ANNUAL REPORT 2021 | 59