NQ squads highlight Cairns’ strong junior program
CAIRNS has dominated the selection table for the men’s North Queensland under-18s, with six of the 10-strong squad hailing from the Far North.
Cairns Basketball stars Jaylon Beecroft, Jordan Dudgeon, Samuel Ellis, Joshua Kelly, Kane Runnalls and Ky Stattmann were all named in the squad.
Felicity Crotty was the sole Cairns representative named in the U18 North Queensland women’s team, which is dominated by Townsville players.
Both teams will travel to Ballarat in April to compete at the Australian Junior Championships.
Cairns Basketball general manager Mike Scott said the success was a result of the work the FNQ basketball community had done over the past decade.
“From our point of view, it’s an endorsement of the program we’ve run for 10 years, to get so many boys in the state team who would have joined the program as under-12s and gone the way through,” he said.
Cairns have been Queensland’s champion junior association in three of the past four years, and their record at the selection table has again proved region’s strength on the courts.
Scott said Cairns took a young representative team filled with bottom-aged players to the girls’ U18s state championships, and expects more players to force their way into the NQ team in 2021 and, hopefully, the WNBL in years to come.
“It’s the strategic objective of Cairns Basketball to have a program in the WNBL,” Scott said. “It gives the girls in Cairns something to aspire to. To get to the next level, they usually have to move out of town. (A WNBL program) would be the final piece of the puzzle.”