FOR the second time in three years, Asha Phillips has starred for NSW Country on the national stage.
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The Cambewarra product was named in the under 18 girls squad in February, ahead of the 2021 Australian Championships at Werribee.
"Preparation leading into the tournament was solid," Phillips said.
"Personally I felt ready to go and was confident my game was at a high enough standard to compete.
"I was running three times a week, doing some sort of basketball every day and making sure to get my strength in at least twice a week to give myself the best chance at having a successful tournament."
Phillips' side opened their April 10-17 tournament at Eagle Stadium with a 90-58 win against ACT.
They then lost their next two pool matches to Victoria Country (81-74) and Queensland South (75-61) before rebounding against Western Australian Country (85-44).
The Nowra High School student's outfit wrapped up their round games with a tight 90-82 loss to South Australia Metro - seeing them finish fourth in their pool.
This pitted NSW Country against Victoria Metro in the quarter-finals.
Unfortunately for Phillips and her side, they lost 74-51, to end their championships dreams and send them into the repechage rounds.
Here they lost to NSW rivals Metro 75-70, before falling to WA Metro once again 80-73, to finish the tournament in eighth position.
"As a team, we played a couple of games together before the tournament which was good to give us a chance to see how we were working together and where we felt we needed to improve," Phillips, a former winner of the Illawarra Academy of Sport Tobin Family Award, said.
"As a team, I thought we performed well throughout the eight games.
"We came up against numerous strong teams in our pool and were right in the contest but just fell away towards the end.
"If we put four quarters of quality basketball together as a team, we would have been right up there come finals time.
"We were content with finishing eighth but know we were a better team than what our final placing says."
From a personal perspective, point guard Phillips, who averaged nine points, three rebounds, three assists and one steal a game, was happy with how she played on the hardwood.
"Overall, I was happy with my performances over the week," she said.
"I played a lot of minutes and tried to have a lot of impact with those minutes.
"My three-point shooting (making 13/25) was my highlight, which I was very proud of."
With the dust having now settled on the tournament, the 17-year-old has had time to reflect on her second national titles.
"Because I had been to nationals before, I knew what to expect," she said.
"However many players I had come up against in under 16s had improved on their game and developed into much stronger players making this tournament much more challenging.
"In saying that, this tournament has made me a better player in multiple ways through experience.
"By being up against the best teams and players my age, I now know through the experience of these nationals where I need to improve and what I did well.
"I can apply this learning to my game and hopefully improve."
Phillips has now shifted her attention's to excelling on the court with the Illawarra Hawks.
"I'll continue playing with Illawarra in the meantime with a couple of games coming up over the next few months," she said.
"But long-term, I'm unsure what the future has install for me yet but I'm just going to continue to enjoy my time on the court."
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