NETBALL Victoria talent scouts will be put on notice by Sunraysia at this weekend’s State Titles.
Sunraysia Netball Region will provide two of their strongest teams in recent times to compete at 15 and under and 17 and under age groups against the best Victoria has to offer.
The region – which comprises Sunraysia Football and Netball league, Millewa Netball Association, Mildura Netball Association and Robinvale Netball Association — will play 18 games across two days at the newly renovated State Netball Centre with eyes on a potential top 10 finish.
Sunraysia State Titles officer Alana Mills said it will be a big weekend for the two squads to strut their stuff.
“It certainly is one of the talent pathways Netball Victoria offer and in previous years, we’ve had a few girls looked at by the talent identification scouts,” she said.
“We had a good little lead-in through the Spring Carnival a few weeks ago where the 17 and under side won their division and the 15 and under side were runners up.
“We would like to try and get some good wins against other country regions, and we’d love to be aiming for finishing inside the top 10 in each age group.
“Since my involvement, these are by far the two strongest sides we’ve sent away. The calibre of the 17s side is outstanding with so many girls regularly playing A or B Grade as well, and the 15 and under girls also pushing for places.”
Sunraysia is one of 19 regions under the Netball Victoria banner and despite being larger by area, it is smaller in terms of the number of associations involved.
“Mildura Netball Association have exclusively supported the girls through considerable funding to ensure they get the opportunity to represent the region,’ mills said.
“It wasn’t by design but all of the girls who made the final squad compete in the SFNL, but it was wonderful to see quite a few trial from the Millewa because they don’t have that other representation opportunity.
“We had 72 names nominate for trials which was a huge number, and then 45 join in the trials before we selected our two squads of 10 with two emergencies.”
Sunraysia will first face Wimmera Mallee in both age groups this morning.
