THE Queanbeyan Roadrunners will use the 2014/15 Basketball ACT summer league to develop and keep players in form ahead of next year's main winter season and the Yowies' NSW State League season.
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The Queanbeyan Basketball Association scrambled together players at the last moment to enter a men's team in the open division which started on October 16, with games played on a Thursday night.
Mixed results have welcomed the men so far, going down by 38 points to Weston Creek Woden in round one and 36 points to Ginninderra the following week, before taking a two point win over Norths last week.
Roadrunners coach Jono Lazaro has injected under 19s players Nick Hulm and Connor Turner to the side to build their experience for next year, and senior player Robbie Ball said it was good to have a blend of young and experienced players together.
"We've definitely improved every single game, and it's definitely been on an upward swing," Ball said.
"It's pretty hard with a team that we just threw together, and the team is different from our winter competition team."
Ball said players in the summer competition would benefit for next year by playing over the coming months, and said if both the Queanbeyan Roadrunners and Yowies teams were to play well next year, they needed players to be "warm" heading into the season.
"That's why we put a team together for the summer league. I didn't want to be out of basketball for that long and just go straight back into the winter season" Ball said.
The Roadrunners and Yowies teams have fielded a high number of similar players in recent seasons, and ball added the summer would be a great opportunity to increase Queanbeyan's depth and have more players to choose from.
"I'm sure a lot more people want to be trying out for Yowies...we want to raise a lot of the up and comers so they can reach a higher skill level and join the higher teams," he said.
