Live stream: Leongatha Basketball Association's remarkable fightback for Country Championships (BV Country Championships)

A small basketball community from Gippsland has overcome plenty of challenges including having no indoor training facilities to compete at the Basketball Victoria Junior Country Championships.

Works to complete the court finished in December last year. Photo: Supplied.

A small regional Victorian basketball community is continuing to punch above its weight after overcoming two years of adversity.

The Leongatha Basketball Association, in the heart of South Gippsland, is making plenty of noise after showing what a true community spirit can do.

While the Covid-19 pandemic had cruelled many community sporting associations across Victoria for the past two years, for the basketballers at Leongatha it’s impact was two-fold.

After years of neglect, they were due to finally install a new roof at the club’s home stadium, before the restoration ground to a halt in the pandemic.

WATCH THE JUNIOR COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS THIS WEEKEND

The state of the roof was described by club vice-president Cara Carter as similar to “turning on a shower head” when it rained.

“It had leaked for years,” she said.

While the club has managed to begin the works in the months after, it forced teams off the courts and left their sides with nowhere to train with school courts also ruled out due to education department restrictions.

Those representative sides included the association’s under-12s sides who will compete at the Basketball Victoria Junior Country Championships in Ballarat this weekend, a tournament exclusively live streamed by the Herald Sun.

Leongatha’s under 12 girls. Photo: Supplied.

The idea was raised to create a temporary outdoor court which quickly came to fruition as the local community rallied behind the town’s next generation of basketball talent.

A disused tennis court, five minutes out of town at Ruby, was eventually settled on as the location for the temporary facility.

Community members and organisations including the Community Fire Authority came together to get it up and running by December with NBL standard rings installed.

The Lightning’s representative sides have trained there since.

“It has been an absolute life saver for our basketball club, after we were forced into a corner,” Carter said.

“This court had blackberries growing out of it and took a lot of work to clean up. If we hadn’t have found this solution our players might have gone and played in surrounding towns.

How the court looked before it was overturned. Photo: Supplied.

“It would have set us back 10 years. The project wasn’t cheap but it has made a massive difference.

“Our teams have trained in the heat of summer and now the cold but if they didn’t have this court they might not have been playing this weekend.

“Our basketball isn’t always about winning it’s about the sense of community we’ve been able to create.”

The court wasn’t just about those involved with the basketball club either with many locals often taking the opportunity to go down and shoot hoops.

The finished product in December. Photo: Supplied.

“I would see tradies who would have stopped in after work in the middle of the week,” Carter said.

“Then on weekends, there would be kids down there for eight hours a day. When we first opened the court, we weren’t sure how it would go but in the five months it was open it was never vandalised.”

This weekend, the Lightning will send two teams, one boys and girls, to the championships held in Ballarat.

They’ll aim to follow on from the success of the under 16 boys side who took home the Division 3 title back in March after winning the grand final against Melton.

The updated Leongatha facility was re-opened on Wednesday.

LIVE STREAM SCHEDULE — DAY ONE

COURT A

9am (Boys) — Leongatha v Geelong United

10am (Girls) — Moe v Maffra

11am (Boys) — Moe v Wangaratta

12pm (Girls) — Phillip Island v Traralgon

1pm (Boys) — Pakenham v Southern Peninsula

2pm (Boys) — Maffra v Ballarat

3pm (Girls) — Bacchus Marsh v Yarrawonga Mulwala

4pm (Boys) — Horsham v Phillip Island

5pm (Boys) — Wonthaggi v Macedon Ranges

6pm (Girls) — Morwell v Ballarat

7pm (Boys) — Sale v Hamilton

8pm (Girls) — Wangaratta v Portland

COURT B

9am (Boys) — Surf Coast v Portland

10am (Girls) — Warragul v Shepparton

11am (Boys) — Echuca v Geelong United

12pm (Girls) — Western Port v Foster

1pm (Girls) — Colac v Echuca

2pm (Boys) — Moe v Macedon Ranges

3pm (Girls) — Bellarine v Ballarat

4pm (Boys) — Mansfield v Melton

5pm (Girls) — Traralgon v Melton

6pm (Girls) — Sale v Mansfield

7pm (Boys) — Western Port v Swan Hill

8pm (Girls) — Surf Coast v Moe