Young stars get opportunity to represent their skills and people at indigenous basketball championships

Three young stars from the Geraldton Basketball Association will be on the national stage as the 14s national Indigenous basketball tournament gets under way on April 12. Trevor Farrell, Noah Bayley (Bennett) and Sharntay Westberg will be pulling on the colours for WA as Gold Coast hosts the tournament which was founded by Indigenous NBA star Patty Mills. The tournament aims to represent the final step in the pathway from the local to national level as part of the National Indigenous Youth Basketball Program Australia. The three players had been going to Perth every weekend for the past eight weeks to attend training sessions, with the squad only announced last week. Trevor’s mum Ashleigh Farrell said she was proud of her son for the hard work he had put in over the months to achieve selection. “He had trialled for a few things and fallen short before so to see him make it this time I’m very proud of him and he’s pretty excited,” she said. “Initially there was a squad of 60 with cuts made each week before getting down to the final 10, so there were definitely some nerves along the way but he always puts in a lot of time and effort and trains really hard.” “To be able to do something he loves and represent his people his a huge achievement and this week is about enjoying the experience and seeing how far he can go with his basektball.” Noah’s mother Kelly Bennett shared a similar sentiment, saying to make it especially as a country player was a huge achievement. “It was pretty exciting, it’s something that they’ve been trying out for last year and this year,” she said. “I don’t think many country people made it, I don’t know whether they knew about it or have the capacity to travel, it’s a bit of a financial thing as well” “But it’s something I know Noah has been working towards for the past two years and he was just super stoked, it’s been a lot of effort and hard work from the boys as well, here training for it with their own local comp. “It was nice to be rewarded for effort on their behalf.” While it is a chance to be on a national stage, it could prove to be so much more as one boy and one girl from the tournament will have an opportunity to be selected for future junior NBA youth basketball competitions.