U17s and beyond for Matthews

Kaiapoi’s Helen Matthews has her sights set on playing college basketball in America.

The 15-year-old is making the right moves on court in New Zealand.

Matthews is the only South Island player in the squad, and was lucky to have the latest training camp at home in North Canterbury.

With the team’s assistant coach being North Canterbury’s Lori McDaniel, the North Canterbury Basketball Association hosted the three-day training camp that concluded with a match against the Canterbury Wildcats squad.

Matthews started playing basketball when she was 10 for Swannanoa School in the Friday night competition.

Since then she has worked her way through the grades, making representative teams and then caught the eye of the national selectors.

From progressing from the South Island trial and making the initial 40-player squad, she is now in the 15-strong squad that is aiming to qualify for the 2018 World Championships.

The New Zealand U17 women will travel to Chennai, India in October to take on the best from the Oceania and Asia Zones. The team will be out to finish in the top four to to secure a spot at the world champs.

While continuing to train with the NZ U17 at regular training camps, Matthews has a big domestic season ahead.

She was a development player with the North Canterbury Premier womens team in last years Canterbury Basketball Association and said she is hoping to ‘‘take on a bigger role’’ this year.

With the likes of Wildcat Haley Gray and Junior Tall Black Charlotte Whittaker in the team, Matthews said it is a good environment to further her game as she looks towards the next step in her path to college hoops.

Also aiding her development will be exposure to top secondary school basketball each week after Kaiapoi High School decided to enter the mid-week Canterbury inter-school competition.

‘‘It will be a hard competition but good for our development.’’

The Kaiapoi women’s team is one of three new entries in the Whelan Trophy, with Hillmorton and Villa Maria, making it a 15 team competition while the Kaiapoi men are the only new addition to the Thomson Trophy, making it a 20-team competition.

It makes for a lot of basketball across the week for someone who has also plays rugby, featuring for the combined Kaiapoi-Rangiora team in the UC Cup last year.

It looms as a big year on court but is just the start of a three-year plan to pick up a scholarship to play ball in America, following the likes of North Canterbury Mary Goulding – the former Rangiora HS student now playing for Fordham University in New York.

‘‘I have to keep making the age group teams consistently and then hopefully that will lead towards picking up a scholarship to play college basketball in America,’’ Matthews said. Herman-Watt scoring four and Lucrettia Taylor two, and they then beat Hutt Valley HS 4-1, with another Taylor double.

In the round of 16 they outclassed Wellington East Girls’ College as Taylor continued her hotstreak putting four in the back of the net along with a hat-trick from Fraser.

Next up was Hamilton Girls’ and a double from Fraser led RHS to a 4-1 win to advance to the semifinals.

After the loss to MAGS, RHS played Palmerston North Girls’ for third, coming out on top of a 5-4 scoreline with goals from Herman-Watt, Gabi Rennie, Fraser and two goals from Abbey Neilson.