SHOALHAVEN products Asha Phillips and Seth Pearman have both shown their talent on the hardwood, by starring for their respective NSW Country sides.
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Phillips and her NSW Kookaburras under 16s girls’ team competed at the Australian Junior Country Basketball Cup in Albury from January 14-19.
The Kookaburas opened their campaign with a 73-39 win against the Tasmanian Devils, with Phillips contributing six points.
They followed it up with a thrashing of the Tasmanian Tigers 86-23 on day two – with Phillips second top scoring for her side with 12 points.
Day three saw Phillips’ side face their toughest test of the week, a double header against the South Australia Magpies and Victorian Bushrangers.
But the Kookaburras showed their class, winning the two games 72-53 and 47-53 respectively – with Phillips adding 20 points across the two matches.
NSW made it five wins on the trot when they smashed New Zealand Weka 100-39, thanks to 20 points from Phillips.
After winning all their pool games, the Nowra product and her side defeated the Tigers once again in the quarter-finals, winning 79-36 – with Phillips again reaching double figures with 11 points.
This pitted the Nowra High School student and her Kookaburras up against NSW counterparts the Waratahs in the semi-final.
Thankfully for Phillips, her team prevailed 56-53, with the guard scoring 13 points – seeing them qualify for the decider.
Unfortunately, the Kookaburras suffered their first loss of the week in the big dance – losing the final 81-73 to the Victorian Goldminers, despite Phillips’ five points.
Not to be outdone, Nowra’s Pearman and his NSW Country under 15 boys team competed at the Southern Cross Challenge, held at Wantirna’s State Basketball Centre in Victoria.
Pearman’s team opened their campaign on January 18 with a 64-31 win against the Victorian Country Bushrangers, before backing it up later that day to edge the South Australia Metro Blue side 51-45.
Following a bye in round three, NSW just beat Western Australia Metro 52-50.
But their winning streak ended at three games, after losing a nail-biter 52-46 to Victoria Metro Navy.
NSW ended their tournament with two wins, firstly against South Australia Country Magpies 75-42 and then against ACT 42-35.
Both Phillips and Pearman will be playing for the Illawarra Hawks during the 2019 representative season.