Whittlesea Pacers basketball women’s team capped off its championship-winning season in perfect style on Saturday night.
After beating Geelong Cats in the division 1 grand final series, the Pacers took out the main gongs for that division at the Big V awards night on Saturday.
Kimetria Hayden was chosen as the division’s most valuable player and was named in the all-star five with teammate Emmie O’Nial.
Retiring coach Shannon Bodley was named as division 1 women’s coach of the year.
Bodley said at the awards night it had been the perfect ending to the season. “These nights are pretty special and to get these types of awards gives us recognition of the hard work we put in as individuals,” he said, adding that the awards for O’Nial and Hayden showed the Pacers had recruited the right players.
“One of the guys said tonight that we got the right import [Hayden] and it’s the same with Emmie,” he said.
“We got two big ‘ins’ and they were shown to be good decisions.
“It was our first time of having an import. I did a lot of work at the start of the year looking at a lot of clips and we got the right one [Hayden].
“The Werribee coach said we had a one-in- 10-year import. The club decided to go down that path so it’s also reward for them, too.” Bodley said Hayden was considering coming back to the Pacers next year.
“She loved Australia and whether she comes back to us, at another club or at a higher level, she’s definitely thinking about it,” he said.
O’Nial was named in the team of the year for the first time after being a finalist last year while playing with Sunbury Jets.
O’Nial was also the grand final MVP.
“She also won our club MVP by three votes,” Bodley said.
“Hopefully, she now realises she’s a good player and doesn’t have to be one of those who has to score big points like she had to at Sunbury. She contributed and the proof is in the pudding.”
Despite winning the coach of the year award, Bodley isn’t reconsidering his decision to retire.
“It probably caps it off,” he said.
“I said as we were coming [to the awards night] that it would be nice to get it, but I’m not all about individual awards.
“It’s been a fantastic season and we talked about capping off my season with one more thing [the award].”
Pacers’ Patrick Green was named in the youth men’s division 1 team of the year.
