A basketball team is celebrating a double-winning season.<\/p>\n
Brighton Cougars Women\u2019s team has secured both the Sussex Women\u2019s League title and the Surrey\/Sussex Plate, capping off another dominant year.<\/p>\n
The community club, based in Brighton, clinched the Plate with a hard-fought 46-37 victory over Tandridge Stealers.<\/p>\n
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Francesca Pitcher, team captain, was named Most Valuable Player after finishing as top scorer in the final.<\/p>\n
Liz Pitcher, team manager, said: “The players have had another strong season and this is testament to the hard work of our players, but also because of the way the club conducts itself.”<\/p>\n
Founded in 1989, the Cougars have now won the Sussex Women\u2019s League for five consecutive years and have regularly lifted the Surrey\/Sussex Cup and Plate competitions in recent years.<\/p>\n
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Despite a sustained period of success, the club remains focused on growth.<\/p>\n
Ms Pitcher said: “We are a very open and nurturing club, always prepared to accept new players and train them.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve done well to maintain our squad but are always looking for new players, particularly for the women\u2019s and girls teams.”<\/p>\n
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The women\u2019s team includes players aged 16 to 60.<\/p>\n
Ms Pitcher is keen to emphasise that basketball is accessible to all, regardless of experience.<\/p>\n
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She said: “For a number of years we have noticed numbers are down, especially for young girls and women playing basketball in the community.<\/p>\n
“Our aim is to encourage girls from the age of 16 upwards to try out basketball.<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t mean you have to have knowledge of playing basketball.<\/p>\n
“You could be a complete beginner, like our team captain Francesca was.”<\/p>\n
Ms Pitcher\u2019s daughter, Francesca, discovered basketball at secondary school and has now played with the Cougars for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
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She said: “I started completely from scratch, joining a team where some girls had been playing their whole lives, but it didn\u2019t matter because joining Brighton Cougars Women changed all that for me.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve been part of this club for over ten years and they\u2019ve helped mould me into the player I am now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A basketball team is celebrating a double-winning season. Brighton Cougars Women\u2019s team has secured both the Sussex Women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,330043,330042,330044,85,330046,44869,330045],"class_list":["post-684661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-brighton-cougars","tag-francesca-pitcher","tag-liz-pitcher","tag-sports","tag-sussex-womens-league","tag-team-captain","tag-womens-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684661","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=684661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}