The Youth League Two Women Division is one of the most competitive divisions in the Big V competition. The Bellarine Storm is sitting top of the ladder for the women and has only lost two games all season. Leading the charge for the Storm is multiple Player of the Month award winner, Carly Sanders.
Sanders has been an absolute standout this season. She leads her division in Points Per Game averaging 18.2 points and while also averaging 11.2 rebounds. Averaging a double-double is no small feat, but it’s her impact on her team's success that’s made this Bellarine Storm team so dangerous.
Carly has been with Bellarine for quite some time now. She first began her basketball journey with Bellarine all the way back in Under 10s domestic.
“My first basketball memory was playing U10s Monday night domestic basketball with my friends in Bellarine. Then as I got older, I started playing VJBL for the Bellarine Storm.”
She would try her hand at a few different sports growing up, but eventually, she decided to stick with basketball.
“Growing up I tried a lot of different sports including footy, cricket, netball, and a couple of others. I chose to follow the basketball path as I made a couple of really good friends through some basketball camps I attended and then I started to get more involved as I got older.”
As Carly got older, she made the decision to go down to Geelong to develop her game.
“I moved from Bellarine Storm to the Geelong Supercats in U16s as at that point Bellarine did not have a senior program. I played my last few years of VJBL at the Supercats and then went on to play Youth League and SEABL for Geelong before I went overseas to play college basketball for a couple of years.”
“After coming back from America I had a couple of years off basketball, then decided to rope my friend back into playing our last season of youth league at Bellarine.” Carly said.
Fast-forward to this year and Carly is having an excellent year. It’s safe to say she’s enjoying her basketball and has even taken on a mentor role for her younger teammates.
“For me this year has just been about having fun playing and giving back by mentoring some of the younger girls in my team, as we have quite a young roster. I had some really great leaders that I looked up to as a younger player so it’s nice to try and do the same.”
“I think we are a really great team when we play team basketball as we have a lot of talented players, so when we play together, we have a great contribution from everyone.” She said.
With the finals fast approaching, Carly is prepping her team to finish the season off strong.
“Some of our goals for this season are to just keep improving on the things we speak about as a team each week and personally, as this is my last season in youth I would love to get as far into finals as possible. I’m not too sure what my next basketball step will be, I am just looking forward to finishing this season strongly with my team.”
Finishing the season with a 20-2 record this Storm team and Carly Sanders are ‘can’t miss’ basketball. Can they take it all the way to the big dance?
