By Tara Murray
Hume City Broncos have added the Big V state championship leading scorer to its squad for next year’s season.
The Broncos announced this week that they had signed Rachel Bell in a big coup for the club.
Bell, who played with the Whittlesea Pacers in her first season in the competition, averaged 26.3 and 6.2 rebounds a game.
Only twice did she score less than 15 points in a game, with a season high of 45 points.
Broncos director of women’s coach Glen Milner said Bell’s style of play suited the game style they were looking to play next season under second year coach Dee Butler.
“The coaching staff’s review of our performance highlighted the need for our team to play a quicker, more agile style of game” Milner said.
“The objective of pushing pace led us to identify Rachel as a great fit for the style of play we want to commit to.
“Rachel, as a 2018 graduate of Vanderbilt and demonstrated performer in our league gives us additional ball-handling, scoring punch and on-court smarts, as well as versatility in our match ups and defensive looks.”
As well as signing Bell, the Broncos have re-signed three of the most important local players.
Guard Nicole Zammit, who was named in the league all-star team this year, has re-signed.
Milner said re-signing Zammit was a big focus.
“It was a priority for us to re-sign arguably the best Australian player in the competition in Nicole, who has given our club terrific service and memorable times and who enjoyed her best season to date.”
Guard Sophie Byrnes and Bianca Babic have also re-signed giving the Broncos a good base to build on.
Butler and youth league coach Tim Devlin are planning to hold open try-outs in the coming weeks as they look to finalise their squads.
