Zadow shines with hectic schedule

IT would be hard to find a busier person in Sunraysia than Ava Zadow.

This week’s Mildura Golf Resort Netballer of the Week performs an outstanding balancing act which includes work, study, playing basketball for the Mildura Heat women’s Division One Big V team plus coaching and hitting the court for Mildura in the SFNL A Grade comp.

“Yeah, my schedule is a bit crazy, but I’m really lucky school gives me time and work is very flexible, so I can work things around each other,” Zadow perhaps understated yesterday.

“I’m currently studying Community Services (at SuniTAFE) and working at One True Pairing on the side.”

Work career path is not a problem for the 20-year-old, but moving forward in the sporting sphere may well be for the Heat’s top local player and the Demons’ star defender, who switched forward last week and scored 40-plus goals in a big win against Imperials.

“Definitely growing up it was always basketball, I fell in love with the game… but there are more opportunities for netball and taking on the coaching role is making me really more invested,” Zadow said.

“As much as I love them both, I think my head is a bit more into netball at the moment.

“It’s a dream, absolutely, as I’m getting into netball a little more and I really admire those girls is the higher leagues.

“But it’s really tough, the travel and all … but maybe one day I’ll move down there (to Melbourne) and give it a crack. We’ll just have to see where it goes, but it would be quite a jump.”

For now, Zadow is concentrating on how far the Demons can go this netball season.

“It is a lot easier to see how things are working and developing from the sidelines,” she said of the coaching role she assumed with Jess McNamara at the end of 2024.

“Being on the court is more challenging but Jess is at one end and I’m at the other, so that helps and then at training everyone is just happy to have a little bit of a say and we just iron anything out that we need to.

“We are in a building phase, we’ve got a young bunch of girls, but Jess and I don’t have any expectations or put any pressure on them. They just need to hear voices that tell them to back themselves and understand they do know how to play netball.”

As Zadow is the Mildura Golf Resort SFNL Netballer of the Week for round 10 she receives a $150 voucher for the Mildura Golf Resort.