Toowoomba Mountaineers ready for under-12 Queensland basketball state titles

The Garden City’s basketball stars of tomorrow will be in action over the weekend with the under-12 state titles taking place. Check out our preview of the three teams and the players to watch.

The 2024 Toowoomba Mountaineers under-12 girls’ side.

The under-12 Queensland basketball state titles are here and the Toowoomba Mountaineers are locked and loaded ahead of a massive week of action.

The Mountaineers will have two boys’ sides competing in the titles to be held in the Garden City, while the girls’ side will travel to Brisbane for their competition.

Under-12 girls coach Monica Conway is excited to see how her side performs as they look to use their experience gained from playing in division one when they battle for the division 2 title this weekend.

“We’ve had a bit of a tough season, we came out of grading in div 1, which we were a little surprised at,” she said.

“We gave it a red hot crack but we’ve been competitive and I think we’ve really improved.

“We have to make sure we are prepared to work hard … as long as we keep that mindset and don’t back off then we will do well.”

After a challenging season in the top division, Conway revealed what has pleased her the most from the team’s effort this season.

“The fact we’ve been able to score in div 1 has told me that we have been improving,” she said.

“We also have been able to improve our defence at that level but we have come from playing not much defence to really build on that.”

Conway revealed the players who she believed would hold the key in these state titles.

“Freya Shipton has been our most consistent and strongest player, she does everything from getting the ball up the court, defending, she is in everything,” she said.

“Lexi Locker – her defence has improved immensely and she’s really valuable in her help defensive role as well as on ball.

“Mackanacka Ngorima – she has stepped into the point guard role and been successful at getting the ball up the court.

“They will be pivotal for us, another one who has stepped up has been Greta Stibbard … she is consistently able to take charges and really helps us out in defence.”

The boys’ development side is competing in Division 5 and is coached by Lachlan Hunter who is excited to finally have the chance to play on home court, having had to travel for every game this season.

The 2024 Toowoomba Mountaineers under-12 boys' development side.

“The boys will be very happy to not have to get up at 5am to play at 9 o’clock at the Gold Coast,” he said.

Hunter said this team had been all about giving the young Toowoomba basketballers a taste of the action and chance to develop, with three players as young as nine years old competing at under-12 level.

“We have a lot of young boys that are bottom age and have not done a state titles before,” he said.

“We only have two experienced players that played in last year’s under-12 state titles so we’re very optimistic, we’re there for the experience.”

Hunter revealed what he believed would be the key to success for his side.

“Especially this team, it is consistency between games and between quarters,” he said.

“They can’t play it like it is a club game, that mental toughness and consistency is very important and just playing as a team is the biggest focus for my boys.”

He also revealed which players he would be leaning on throughout this competition.

“There’s the two experienced boys and the year of experience really showed,” Hunter said.

“They were ready for what the refs call, they were ready for how physical and fast the game is, the other boys, they weren’t ready for it.”

Logan Doyle and Andrew Hunter will be key players for the development Neers, with the duo combining for more than 280 points during the regular season.

The top Mountaineers boys team will be competing in Division 2 and had a solid regular season, finishing fifth out of eight teams, with six wins and eight losses.

Christopher Quick and Harry Salmi will be pivotal players for this side as they have led the team in scoring with 274 points between them.