NWBL Round 1

The Wheelcats flew out of Perth early Saturday morning (up at 5am so that Abdi and I could be at the airport for 7am - thanks to the guys who left me alone with my ipod, a tired Clare is a cranky and irritable Clare!) to arrive in Melbourne about 4 hours after take-off, for the first round of the National Wheelchair Basketball League against the Dandenong Rangers.

Melbourne is a beautiful city but holy cow its cold! Good thing the heater in our car was working. We had about an hours drive straight to the basketball stadium with about an hour til tip-off to get organised.


As a team we started off well, in the lead right from the start, but individually it took me a while to get into the swing of things. I was pretty shite in the first Q. Getting in my own teams way, unnecessary fouls, etc. etc. But I think I got into the groove of things, started reading the D a little bit better and working with my big a bit more. I must have been nervous at the start but hopefully I can leave those nerves behind, move forward, and be a great player right from the start of the game.

We ended up winning 91 to 72, with 6 points being mine, which I'm happy with because in past years, I didn't tend to shoot that much in NWBL. I was too scared of missing and disappointing my team to want to try. But Coach has been drilling me out of that thought process, so I think I am improving in that aspect. My fellow low pointer, Abdi, was a gun, scoring 12 points for our team. Go the lows!

After the game we checked into our hotel, me and Sam sharing an apartment. I shot-gunned the master bedroom with ensuite straight away. We then went to the other guys rooms for a laze around the tv with pizza. It didn't take long for the away trip tradition of proving one's masculinity against each other to occur. There was a suggestion of a low pointer bout but I kindly declind :)

I went to bed around 11 and had a nice sleep in til 8.30am, for a 9am breakfast followed by an 11am check-out.

Our second game against the Rangers started at 1pm. We scored the first shot of the game, but 4 minutes into the game, Dandenong were up. However, it didnt take us long to catch up and accerated past them to win the game 99 to 68 (despite several unsavoury calls from the officials). I felt better in this game than the previous one. I only scored the one goal but I felt better in the other aspects of the game. Congrats to J for his triple-double and Shaun for scoring 47 points!

The drive back to the airport was relatively event free, not really needing the road book ('can you see the Crown, Ben??'). After a slight delayed departure, we finally took off and after many hours of sleeping, reading or annoying the person in front or behind of you (*cough* Lee *cough*), we were back in Perth by 9pm.

Next weekend we have a home round against the Woolongong Rollerhawks. Its just the one game on the Saturday but it should be a good game. Hopefully there will be a sea of red in the crowd!

Now I should start studying for my exam on Wednesday (have taken the challenge of not going on Facebook today.. hmmmmmm thats a tough one!), or at least get started on some house work :(

Ciao mio amichi! (i think thats how it goes..)

AIS camp #2

I've got about 15 minutes until the potato bake is ready so I thought I would do a bit of a catch up.

Lets go back to last Thursday - 21.5.09. Between the end of the first womens league round and that Thursday, I had Dori, fellow Glider, staying with me at my place in Perth. She came here to train with me and the Wheelcats and Western Stars, but also to have some fun. And that we did! Thanks goes to Mother Nature for giving us 3 beautiful weeks of sunny cloudless days. She did, however, give us a proper good bye by letting it pour down with rain on Dori's last day in Perth!

(Cruising down the Western Australian coastline)

Thursday afternoon, Dori and I, the other two Perth girls and John (HC) flew to Canberra for the 2nd Gliders training camp for the year. We arrived a few hours after everyone else, so it was a quick check in and then to bed so that we could be up very early the next day! Dori and I decided we hadn't had enough of each other just yet and ended up being roomies for the camp as well :)

Friday - 22.5.09
The morning started with what was for me, a 5am (as in Perth time..) wake up, breakfast and then a team meeting. It was awesome to see all the girls again. There was even 1 new face, and a few familiar faces, but new to the Gliders.

The session was a testing session. We went into the Physiotherapy testing room and had our sitting heights, arm span and weights measured before we went out on court for fitness testing. Fitness testing involved 20m sprints, with gates measuring our acceleration every 5m, an Illinois agility test, measuring how fast you can turn, and a 7 minute push test, to see how far you can push in 7 minutes. Results showed that I have improved since the last time it was recorded at the AIS, which is good!

We then had lunch, some photo's taken and then a 3 hour session filled with a defence session with Ben, an offence with Matt and John and shooting testing. The girls then had recovery in the ice plunge room but I stayed back with our physio Emma who did acupuncture on my shoulder to fix the inpingement I've recently developed since starting work.

It was then dinner, followed by free time until bed! (I'm liking this concept of having time to recover so we can train at our peak the next day!)

Saturday 23.5.09
Another early morning for breakfast, a team meeting and then a training session from 9 til 11.30 followed by lunch and then a meeting with Liz about nutrition. Cheesecake is at the top of the food pyramid but apparently being at the top is bad in this case :(

We then had another 3 hour training session filled with going through offence and defence plays and alot of scrimmage!

More recovery (acupuncture for me!) , dinner and free time before bed!

Sunday 24.5.09
Breakfast, a training session, lunch followed by another training session. We then had a team meeting where John concluded the camp and we watched the video that Dori and I made about the Osaka trip while she stayed with me (and by golly, THAT video took forever to do! There were a few things that could have been tweeked but by the time it was published using Windows Media Player the first time, we thought it would do!).

It was then time to shower up and go back to our respective states. It was sad to finally say goodbye to Dori but I will be seeing her this weekend when I travel to Melbourne to play in the first round of the Mens league with the Perth Wheelcats.

Which leads onto my next thing! Mens league! Well, mixed league more like it. Im not a man, but the league is about 95% men.

This year the Wheelcats are going for the big, never to have been done before, 4 in a row! We've been training 3 nights a week as a team since around end of Feb, but many of us have been doing our own thing for a long time before that. So hopefully we are ready. But im confident in my team. We have a huge number of members in our squad and no matter who is chosen to play for each of the games, everyone will put in 100%. We all have a common goal and we want it BAD!

It help us, we have gotten an inport from the mens national team from Great Britain. A 'top gun' 1.0 pointer called Abdi (who is staying with me for the first month, and will move onto someone else the next month, to share the Wheelcat spirit). We have welcomed back Shaun, fresh from his stint in Spain. And we also have a few new faces in the team, including my girl Amber from the Western Stars.

Yet again, I'm nervous in the lead up to the game, but so so excited!

I will let you know how I go :)

Basketball

Found this video on the Basketball Australia website, and saw you can post it to Blogs.. Thought I would give it a try :)

Random adventure

Straight after our last game on the Sunday, Dori (who is staying with me until next Gliders camp), her two friends Fi and Ant, and I went back to my place for a quick shower and change and then drove down to Busselton (4 hours away from Perth).

We got there around 7ish pm, checked in, found some dinner and then pretty much passed out (from being tired! Only had a coke zero..).

The next morning we got up, had a bit of breakfast and then after Fi got back from taking Ant to his scuba dive, the 3 girls had a bit of a drive around Busselton. Went to the really long jetty (I heard its the longest one in the southern hemisphere..?) and had coffee at one of the little cafe's there. Went up the jetty for a little bit, then had a relaxer on the grass, and then drove out to the Marina where we had to pick Ant back up, had a drink, some hot chips and aioli, saw the scuba boat come in, then started our trip back to Perth.


The first round of State Comp was cancelled for the Stars because the other team forfeited, so we had the luxury of not having to rush back to Perth. So we stopped at Rockingham so the Melbournites could watch the sun set over the water. We also had dinner at a restaurant called Sunsets on the foreshore.



We finally got home and pretty much went to bed straight away.

The next day we decided to go to Scarborough Beach for a coffee with views of the beach before driving down the coastal road to Freo where we had lunch at Little Creatures (brewery). We all picked share plates so we had a nice feast of marinted kangaroo skewers, a gormet pizza, king praws and salmon with potatoes.

After a small walk around the jetties, it was time to take Fi and Ant to the airport. Afterwards, Dori and I went for a huge food shop before training in the evening.

I didn't want my extended weekend to end! But it was back to work on the Wednesday..

(oh and if your wondering why I am up so early, its coz I thought I had a WAIS breakfast on this m0rning, but its actually tomorrow. My bad!)

WNWBL Round 1

Well hinesight is a wonderful thing!

We won all 4 games! So I didn't have to worry so much after all!

The first game on Friday night was against Dandenong. We started off pretty rusty, with a 8 - 0 on the score board at one stage in the 1st Q. But we got our nerves under control and ended up winning 65-28.

The 2pm game on the Saturday was against the Hills Hornets (7 time National League premiership holders). This game came right down til the last few seconds. Such a stressful situation to be in. We were tied with a few seconds to go. Alicia was sent to the line for 2 free throws, completely missed the first one, but redeemed herself by making the next (nice swish too). So we ended up winning that 45-46.

The 6pm game on the Saturday was against the Gladiators. We won that 31-81. Oh, and I've got a request to say hi to HKP.. So: "Hi!".

Our last game was at 11.30am on the Sunday. Coach told us that if we win this one (which would make us 4 of 4) then we wouldnt have to go to training on the Monday. We won 54-23.

The last game was probably the best I've felt like I've played since starting basketball. I don't normally shoot and in this game I got 12 points. So unlike me! I also got a few rebounds, assists (love it when my high's get it in the first time and not miss, catch their own rebound and then make the shot!) and steals. I also only got the 1 turn-over, unlike the 2 games on the Saturday where I was on 4 near the end of the game. (Woops!)

So we were pretty happy about our first round. And now that I've seen the other teams play, I don't have to stress about the scary unknown anymore :)

If you want to have a read of all the results and statistics, then check out Sporting Pulse and follow the appropriate links.