SAPPHIRES SQUAD NARROWED FOR FINAL SELECTION CAMP AHEAD OF U17 WORLD CUP

Qualifying for the World Cup by winning the gold medal at the Under-16 Asian Championships where they finished with an average winning margin of 36 points, 11 members of that side are still in contention for the final team.

The remaining five players all starred at the Under-18 Australian Championships including gold medalists Isobel Anstey and Lily Scanlon from Victoria, silver medalist with South Australia Ruby Porter as well as Western Australia’s Suzi-Rose Deegan and Catriona Henderson from New South Wales.

With the camp running from June 1-4, the final team will then have about a month and a half to prepare for the Under-17 World Cup which will be held in Minsk, Belarus from July 21-29.

The Sapphires will be aiming to defend the team’s inaugural gold medal from two years ago when they took care of Italy in the final, following a victory against USA in the Semi-Final which was the country’s first ever loss in tournament history.

While it is their only medal at the Under-17 World Cup, Australia owns an overall record of 22-7 since the competition began in 2010.

This year, the Sapphires who are ranked 7th in the world, will take on Angola (ranked 34th), Latvia (24th) and Canada (4th) in the group stage but every team will advance to the Round of 16 with the tournament entering a knockout stage after that.

Stay tuned to Basketball Australia for the announcement of the final team for the Sapphires as well as information on how to watch the games and keep up to date with the scores from the 2018 FIBA Under-17 World Cup.

The Australian Sapphires Selection Camp Squad ahead of the FIBA Under-17 World Cup:

NAME	STATE
Georgia Amoore	Victoria
Isobel Anstey	Victoria
Suzi-Rose Deegan	Western Australia
Agnes Emma-Nnopu	Victoria
Alexandra Fowler	Queensland
Ashlee Hannan	Queensland
Shyla Heal	New South Wales
Catriona Henderson	New South Wales
Eliza Hollingsworth	Victoria
Jade Melbourne	Victoria
Isabel Palmer	New South Wales
Olivia Pollerd	Victoria
Ruby Porter	South Australia
Gemma Potter	Victoria
Kelsey Rees	South Australia
Lily Scanlon	Victoria
STAFF	ROLE
Shannon Seebohm	Head Coach
Mark Wrobel	Coach
Melissa Downer	Coach
Kara Retford	Team Manager
Madeleine Thompson	Physiotherapist
Viran de Silva	Doctor

Following their first camp at the Centre of Excellence, the Australian Sapphires’ squad has been narrowed to 16 and will head back into a final selection camp from June 1-4 before naming their team for the 2018 FIBA Under-17 World Cup.