New addition to our Big V Basketball State Championship Women’s team, Courtenay Wragg got a call up this past weekend to travel with the Melbourne Boomers WNBL main roster on the ‘Doomsday Double’ road trip, playing Adelaide in Adelaide on Friday night and then Perth in Perth on Saturday night.

Courtenay was one of 9 athletes that the injury-stricken Boomers brought on the road to play the Lightning and the Lynx respectively, with little more than 24 hours between games, despite travel to the other end of the country.

‘I was speechless when I got the call from our Team Manager, Jenni. I was excited and nervous, but felt more comfortable once I was around the girls in the team because it became all about business’, Wragg said.

‘I drew confidence from thinking that getting the call up means I’m on the right track in my growth as a player. I was just so humbled though – being a playing part of the group is such a special thing, minutes on court was never going to matter. This was an honor and I was going to give it my best.’

It would prove to be one of the best classrooms the young gun could be in at this point of her development – having to deal with 2 international players that represent our country, under the bright lights.

Courtenay featured in both of the weekend’s games, playing nearly 6 minutes against Adelaide and getting 1 rebound and 1 assist as she guarded Australian Opal and WNBA Point Guard, Leilani Mitchell.

‘Leilani is so quick and such a great ball handler. It really tests your self belief in those moments, because you need to convince yourself that all the training you’ve done has gotten you ready for this – there’s no half efforts when you guard players like her, you have to be switched on all the time’, Wragg explained

The Boomers would go down in that contest, as the injury bug was further stretched when Shooting Guard Maddie Garrick had her chin split open, requiring stitches.

Then it was off to the West, where the challenge of taking on the league’s top of the ladder team, on their home floor, awaited. Courtenay saw just under 4 minutes of action in the game and got herself a rebound. The team rallied from the previous night's defeat and hung tough against a quality Lynx outfit – staying close for 3 and a bit quarters before Perth was able to break away and get the result. Courtenay had to share a court with another Australian Opals Point Guard, Tessa Lavey that night.

‘Playing in Perth was a real game-changer for me. The environment was amazing – there was so much noise and the game had a finals feel to it, where every possession really mattered. The adrenaline you feel really gets you going – I saw an opportunity to get to the rim at one stage, and as I drove the ball, 2-3 players rotated to me so quickly and I passed the ball out to Kasey who had an open jump shot, but one of the Lynx girls was quick enough to get right in front of me and I got a charge’, Wragg recalls. ‘They are so alert and so fast that they deal with everything defensively and really make you work for everything – if a screen isn’t set right on them, they get over everything easily. I realized pretty quickly how important the ball is in your hands at that level.’

Albeit with a weekend empty of the results the team set out to achieve, Courtenay learned some tangible lessons that will serve her in future.

‘On the Perth leg of the trip, I roomed with Kate Oliver and she was so motivating. She was just so positive and in control all the time. She said that even though the group had some key players injured that all we had to do was stick together, stay empowered and most of all have fun competing – it was striking to me the mindset shift away from the outcome and more on how to think and see the challenge of the game. I just kept asking her more and more questions, I wanted to learn from her experience’.

The most impressive thing, in hearing Courtenay recount the weekend, was to hear the clarity in her thinking, indicating that she drew a lot from the experience and it will continue to keep the fire burning in the young athlete moving forward.

‘On the plane home it hit me that this is exactly what we play for. What we train every day for. It’s what we live for. Experiences playing the game at the highest level, in environments like that – it makes me want to keep working that much harder to become a key player for the Boomers and able to play games like that every single week’.