	Week Beginning 01/06/2009

First GB cap for Edinburgh wheelchair basketballer

Edinburgh’s Steven Ross, who completed the domestic season this month by helping Lothian Phoenix gain promotion to the GB Wheelchair Basketball Association's Division 1 (North) for the first time, has at the start of the international season received his first call up to the GB junior side.

He had been the team’s first reserve for this weekend’s Astra Tech Junior Challenge at the Stoke Manderville Stadium in Buckinghamshire but yesterday, when a team mate pulled out injured, he was brought in as the team’s first Scottish player.

Seventeen year old Steven, who began the sport less than two years ago, has been training with Great Britain’s junior squad for the past two months but sees this tournament – against teams from Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden – as the perfect opportunity to prove himself.

“I was really disappointed not to be named in the original team so it was brilliant news to get the call last night asking me to play,” he said.

“I have been training at the High Performance Centre in Carlisle every Wednesday as well as going to squad training camps at Stoke Mandeville.

“The camps are really hard and you are training four times a day for two hours straight. I can definitely see the improvement and it gives me the chance to compare myself against the best players of my age and aim to get better than them.”

Since March Steven has been a member of the East of Scotland Institute of Sport (ESIS), benefitting from one to one coaching with the GB junior team’s assistant coach, Stevie Duff and basketballscotland’s 2012 Coordinator, Trudie Hopgood. As part of the support package he has been working on a Strength & Conditioning programme.

“Steven has improved massively in the past few months and ESIS has been a major factor in his swift progression,” said Stevie Duff, who coaches Lothian Phoenix alongside his international coaching duties.

“The Strength & Conditioning work, the one to one sessions I’ve been taking him for and his one to ones with Trudi Hopgood have all made a major difference. He has worked so hard over the past months and he is now reaping the benefits of that hard work.

“Steven is the first ever Lothian Phoenix player to be selected for a British team and we are all extremely proud of him.”

Rob Eyton-Jones

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                                Phoenix creating a storm at play offs

Lothian Phoenix, The only Scottish team competing in the Great Britain Wheelchair Basketball Association leagues, completed their second Promotion in two years with a well-fought contest against the Oldham Owls in the GBWBA 2nd Division Championship.

After finishing 2nd in the 2nd Division North behind the Owls, Lothian had a semi-final against the Raiders, who finished 1st in the South. After a comfortable victory over the Raiders, the stage was set for a rematch against the Owls. The Oldham team had previously beaten the Phoenix by 28 and 24 points during league play. The championship final appeared to be a simple matter of dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s for Oldham.

This view was not shared by the Phoenix. The final started evenly with Steven Ross, 17, being a key player, following his 16 points against the Raiders.

Early into the 3rd Quarter, the game started to turn in Oldham’s favour. After a few quick breakaways, the Phoenix found themselves 13 points down. However, the players were not going to give up at this point.

The Phoenix poured on the defensive pressure against Oldham and managed to score some well-worked baskets off the resulting turnovers. Most of those baskets came from Phoenix top scorer, Robert O’Rorke, and Musselburgh’s Simon Ramsay.

By midway through the fourth quarter Lothian found themselves in the lead and looking comfortable. They saw the game out to finish with a 9 point lead, winning 56 – 47. The Phoenix can now look forward to a season in the 1st Division and are making plans to enter a second team into the Great Britain Development League.
Head Coach of the Phoenix, Stevie Duff, commented after the game,

“The guys were like a tropical storm during the second half of the match. Our defence blew Oldham away and created havoc with the Oldham players, forcing the opposition into turnover after turnover. This set the stage for our fourth quarter comeback. The team has worked very hard during the course of the season and have improved steadily during this time. They thoroughly deserve all the success they have achieved this weekend. We are looking forward to the new challenge of playing in Division One next season and will be beginning to make our preparations as soon as we get back up the road to Scotland.”