The Australian Wombats (women) have rounded out a strong campaign for Australia\u2019s 3×3 wheelchair basketball program, defeating India in a best-of-three series in Bangkok to secure the Oceania qualification spot for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.<\/p>\n
Victoria Simpson, Georgia Munro-Cook, Ebony Stevenson and Teisha Ovens wasted no time as they overpowered India 16-1 in the opener and 20\u20131 in the second to close out the series.<\/p>\n
For Head Coach\u00a0Rob Pike, the focus in Bangkok was on setting the tone defensively \u2014 building pressure, creating turnovers, and dictating the tempo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aim was defensive pressure and intensity,\u201d Pike said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted deflections, steals, and shot clock violations \u2014 and that\u2019s what we got. The girls worked hard. The goal was two wins, and that\u2019s what we achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s success follows the men\u2019s Wombats, who also secured the Oceania qualification spot in Bangkok earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
Pike said the results reflect the progress being made across Australia\u2019s 3×3 pathway and the enthusiasm of players embracing the format<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 3×3 program in Australia is in a really good position. This year the program has won a bronze medal and qualified for the Commonwealth Games. The players love this version of basketball, and we are improving every time we play.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the 3×3 series complete, attention now turns to the 5×5 game as the Wombats remain in Bangkok for the\u00a0Asia Oceania Zone Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are excited for the opportunity to play against the best teams in our region. We are focused and ready to play some good quality, intense basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Wombats (women) have rounded out a strong campaign for Australia\u2019s 3×3 wheelchair basketball program, defeating India…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,83],"class_list":["post-265778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}