Junior Buccs shine bright at 2025 Basketball WA Country Week with four championships

The Geraldton Amateur Basketball Association’s junior Buccs squads have returned from 2025 Basketball WA Country Championships after six teams reached grand finals.

The GABA sent 15 junior teams to Perth over the past few weeks of competition, ranging from under 12s to under 18s in both boys and girls divisions.

From these 15 teams, six teams went on to feature in grand finals, with four of those six walking away with a championship.

The championship junior Buccs teams were the under-12 boys, under-13 boys, under-12 girls and under-14 girls, with runners-up going to the under-14 boys and under-13 girls division two team.

The runner-up under-14 boys team and the championship under-14 girls team were invited by Basketball WA to compete in Perth at the Club Championship Qualifiers in late March.

The Club Championship Qualifiers give under-14 teams from all over WA an opportunity to compete against each other, with the top three finishers going on to represent WA in the Australia Club Championships.

GABA administrator Nerolie Gerreyn said they were incredibly proud of the junior teams’ efforts.

“All in all we had a really successful campaign that we are all really proud of,” she said.

“The junior ranks and following of the sport in the Mid West is huge and continues to grow, hence why we can send so many teams down to country week.”

Gerreyn said the health of basketball and the association was at an all-time high.

“We had more kids than ever before at our trials last year,” she said.

“You can see the love of the game here has grown; you only need to come down to a GABA game and see these kids and the amount of passion they have for the game.

“Our grand finals for the GABA over the weekend were incredible. We had 850 people show out in support and a lot of those 850 were kids aspiring to be out there in the future.”