The 2024 Storm Season has officially launched!
Over the weekend, our 2024 Blacktown Storm Community gathered to celebrate the start of the season with our inaugural Season Launch event. For the second year running, we partnered with Logan James Creative to capture our 2024 Media Day photos as some players put their full uniform kit on for the first time. On Saturday, alongside the photoshoots, we displayed the talents of our 2024 teams by holding a Storm Showcase which included Junior Scrimmages, Three Point Contests and a duel between our two Senior Men teams. It was an exciting weekend and a great way for our teams to have some fun before the start of the season.
We kicked off the event with the U12’s game where we had the Boys vs Girls to begin and then mixed it up in the second half. This was the first time our U12 Girls have scrimmaged outside of training and Coach Augusto and Coach Jeff were pleased with what they saw. The U14 Girls followed, mixing our two teams, team GOLD came out with the win 29-25. After some major delays, we were able to slip in a quick 10-minute scrimmage between the two U16 Girls teams before closing off our Junior Scrimmages with a face-off between U14 Boys Team One and Two.
Our Three-Point Contest was the ultimate test between our best Junior (U16s Only) and Senior shooters. We started with our Senior Contest.
Rules:
Five spots around the three-point line
Three shots per spot
One point per make
Two points per make for their Money Basket (one spot of the five)
90 Seconds
We had five Youth League Men (YLM) representatives, two Waratah Men (WM) representatives, two coaches and a special appearance by our Director of Coaching, Steve Sardi. Of the ten participants, James from YLM and Campbell from WM tied to lead the first round with a score of 11 to make the Final Round. In fine fashion, they ended up tied with eight a piece which led to a tie-break shootout. Ultimately, Campbell from WM came out as the winner of the 2024 Senior Three-Point Contest.
Due to some delays, we had to hold the Junior Three-Point Contest after the Senior Game which meant we only had the U16 girls and boys left to square off for the title.
Rules:
Five spots around the three-point line
Two shots per spot
One point per make
Two points per make for their Money Basket (one spot of the five)
60 Seconds
We had eight U16 Boys representatives, three U16 Girls representatives and a special appearance by U16 Boys’ Head Coach, Lual Diing. We had the top four move forward to the final round, Alfred (6), Ayaan (5), Rynzyd (4) and Uelese (4). With seven points in the final round, we crowned Rynzyd the 2024 Junior Three-Point Contest Winner.
The Senior Men’s duel between Youth League and Waratah Men proved to be the headline event. An early lead by YLM in the first quarter quickly went away with WM taking the lead going into halftime 24-23. The guys kept things close in the second half and despite WM leading by two going into the fourth quarter, they found themselves in a four-point deficit with 35 seconds left. Omar A. cut the YLM lead to two with a quick bucket but with little time left, the YLM were able to hold the ball and get Daniel P. the open three which secured the dub for the young men, 63-58.
We want to thank everyone involved in making this event happen. A special shoutout to the team at Logan James Creative for making our players feel like superstars during the photoshoot.
The season has officially launched!! Catch our U12 Boys, U14 Boys and U16 Boys at the Central Coast Classic this weekend before Pre-Season tips off the following weekend (24th-25th of February - schedule to be shared soon).
For the 2024 Storm Season Launch photo gallery - click here.
