Manjimup and Bridgetown Basketball Associations prepare for new junior and senior seasons

Basketballers in the Manjimup-Bridgetown area are gearing up for their new seasons set to start next week. The Bridgetown Basketball Association and Manjimup Amateur Basketball Association will launch their senior seasons from the week starting October 7, with the MABA season senior matches on Monday and Wednesday nights. BBA’s seniors will play on Tuesday nights, with junior matches to begin on October 10. MABA president Aaron Pedlar said 25 senior teams would be returning, with many of the same players coming back — but some set to don different colours this year. He said the feature of a stop-clock game would be returning from last season for the last three minutes of each game to allow a tighter contest. “It gives us a lot of close finishes and it’s a better experience for the players,” he said. Mr Pedlar said the association had worked with the Manjimup Netball Association to secure funding for new scoreboards at the Manjimup Indoor Pavilion. Bridgetown Basketball Association president Craig Goulder said the senior women’s competition had expanded this season with new teams joining, while the junior competition continued to have small numbers. “The women’s competition has had a bit of an explosion, it’s gone from seven teams to 10 or 11 this season,” he said. “In the juniors, it’s very small, pretty much identical (to last season). Going back a few years back, it was four years’ worth of kids in each age division, and now we’ve gradually been able to get it down to each age bracket for the boys. “For the girls, we’ve gotten it down to three, but we’re not still there to get it down as much as the boys for this season.”