Townsville flexes its muscles in title push

A RECORD breaking representative season will ignite even further this weekend.

Six U16 Townsville basketball teams, the most from the region to compete in the Queensland North Junior Basketball Championships, performed strongly in Cairns for the first leg.

They have now travelled to Mackay for round two looking to assert themselves as the top of the North.

One of the highlights at the last carnival was the Townsville Sparks teams both having victories in Cairns. This is the first time that Townsville has fielded a third team in this age group.

“To see our athletes beating teams that were second division or even first division teams from their association in Cairns was outstanding,” Townsville Basketball coach and player development officer Peter Crawford.

“It goes to show how strong our core of players are in Townsville as we continue to be the benchmark of associations in Queensland outside of the metropolitan area.”

The Townsville Heat team had three wins out of four games in Cairns and look to be in a head-to-head battle with the Cairns Marlins for the honours in the Under 16 Boys’ age group.

In Division 2 the Lightning Girls head into the weekend undefeated, while the Lightning Boys will look to challenge Cairns for top spot after losing to them in round one.

Meanwhile the Townsville Flames will look to bounce back after a struggle in Cairns with only one victory out of their four matches.

But coach Lisa Thompson was confident the team had made significant improvement since then. “We have been working hard on our defensive strategies, which needed improvement,” she said.

“The other focus has been getting more contributions from all of the players.”