Hume City Broncos have announced the signing of two imports for next year’s Big V women’s state championship season.
After a disappointing 2017, which was affected by import changes and player unavailability, the Broncos are keen to regain their place at the top of the competition.
Americans Lisa Murphy and Kelly Hardeman will join the existing core group of players at the club.
Murphy comes to the Broncos after an impressive college career, during which she broke the NCAA record for field goal percentage. She was named first team American twice and led Carnegie Mellon University to a conference title this year.
She’s currently playing in Denmark.
She’ll be joined at the Broncos by Hardeman, who graduated from college last year. During her time at college, she was named PacWest division player of the year and in the All PacWest first team of the year for three years running. Hardeman has also had a stint playing in Denmark.
Broncos coach Michael Thomas said the two would add to what is an already strong line-up.
“The club is very pleased to have two quality people and players in Kelly and Lisa join our program,” Thomas said. “They are mobile athletes and will make an impact at both ends of the floor and are a great fit for the style of play that will characterise the Lady Broncos’ effort in 2018.”
Viv Saad, Mua Laloifi, Nicole Zammit, Sophie Byrnes and Nikki Spencer have all signalled their intentions to return.
Thomas said that group, along with Jess Azzopardi, Hannah Mrakov, Ellen Wright and Jamie Germaine-Gray, who have all tasted state championship basketball, would give the club confidence it could play finals again.
Broncos’ director of women’s coaching Glen Milner said the club had the right foundations in place across its two women’s sides for an exciting future.
Tim Devlin will coach the youth league women’s side.
“Tim is proving to be a great acquisition and is working well with Mick to assess and develop our home-grown talent, while having our under-18 and under-16 coaches Brooke Davenport and Antonio Lewis also assist at the Big V level strengthens the bridge to our under-age program.”
Ebony Sans and Tegan Hindle have joined the youth league side.
