Sport
4 May, 2024
Mentor magic moves Bulldogs to top spots
By GARY WALSH AFTER three rounds of Loddon Valley netball, Pyramid Hill was sitting unbeaten in Loddon Valley A, B and C grade. And it’s not an accident. The Bulldogs in recent years have introduced a mentoring system led by senior players to help...
By GARY WALSH
AFTER three rounds of Loddon Valley netball, Pyramid Hill was sitting unbeaten in Loddon Valley A, B and C grade. And it’s not an accident.
The Bulldogs in recent years have introduced a mentoring system led by senior players to help the development of juniors.
That, along with a strong club culture, has seen Pyramid Hill become a powerful force in the competition.
Imogen Broad, last year’s league rising star winner, is an example of the buy-in from senior players to the club’s ethos.
Local product Broad, 19, travels three-and-a-half hours from Geelong, where she is studying an accelerated optometry course at Deakin University, twice a week for training and matches.
She also mentors under 17 player Shamica Castro, dominates the court as centre for the Bulldogs A Grade team, and coaches youngsters in the NetSetGo program.
A Grade coach Chelsea Emmerson says the mentoring program “aims to bridge the gap between juniors and when they move into the seniors”.
It’s a measure of Broad’s ability that she has shifted into mid-court after playing last season as goal keeper due to a limited stock of players.
“I’d never played in defence before,” Broad says. “I’d always been a mid-courter – I do like running around.”
Emmerson, her new coach, also happens to be her aunt. And Broad says she’s a hard marker: “She tells you how it is. She’s not afraid to put people in their place.” It’s the first time Broad has played under a non-playing coach, and she is a fan.
“They see the game differently,” she says, with the ability to watch the whole court rather than having the distraction of trying to play their own game as well as coach the others,” she said.
Broad has no ambition to play netball at a higher level – apart from packing a seven-year course into three-and-a-half years, she says simply: “I like coming home.”
The Bulldogs led all day against Marong, winning 44-64 at Malone Park.
Goal shooter Jess Holdstock with her towering height was imperious, while goal defence Abbey Dingwall was named best player.
Elsewhere in A Grade, last season’s premier runners-up Mitiamo won 57-34 over premiers Maiden Gully and and Bears Lagoon Serpentine, who won their first game for five years last week, lost narrowly at home to Newbridge, 35-38. Bridgewater defeated Inglewood.