Big decision as Albany young gun Keely Berry picks netball ahead of basketball after dual State team selection

Albany rising star Keely Berry is the sole regional player selected in the Netball WA 17-and-under State team that will come up against the best players in the nation in April. The national championships will be played at Sydney’s Netball Central from April 10-16, with the West Coast Fever sending two teams selected from their youth development squads. Berry started her netball journey playing as part of the Fever in Time program alongside four other Great Southern netballers, and progressed through to the under-17s Futures squad. The 12-player travelling team was announced on February 13, with Berry the only Great Southern or regional representative. Berry said it had been a tough selection process. “I’m the only country girl in the team, and only Great Southern girl,” Berry said. “The rest are all metro and they live up in Perth, so they train together during the week and I meet them to train on weekends.” Also a key player in the Great Southern basketball scene, Berry was selected for the under-18 girls’ State basketball team and the two competitions clashed but the 16-year-old chose to stick with netball. “I chose to play netball in the end over the basketball,” she said. “It was tough to decide, but I felt like I’ve come all the way up with the Fever teams from the Fever in Time program and then to Futures, so netball ended up being what I chose.” The young defender said she was looking forward to tackling the challenge of playing on a national stage. “Nationals is always a bigger challenge, you’re playing against the best of the best in the other States, but WA is always very good at never giving up, even when it’s tough,” she said. Meanwhile, the Fever’s 19-and-under squad are having another shot at winning the gold medal they narrowly missed out on last year.