Madi named top Warrior

The Warragul Warriors Basketball Club celebrated the close of its most successful junior country representative season on Sunday at the Warragul Country Club, crowning Madison Hinton as Junior Clubperson of the Year at the club's annual presentation day.

The award recognises the player who best embodies the values of the Warragul Warriors both on and off the court.
Hinton - a member of the under 14.2 girls team - was nominated by her team manager, Julie Bow.

Hinton was praised for her extraordinary selflessness throughout the season. As a coach's daughter, she regularly accepted reduced court time to ensure fairness for her teammates, responding not with complaint, but with relentless encouragement from the bench.

Late in the season she volunteered to play a tournament with the .3s team when they were short on numbers, so that no one from her own team would have to be moved.
Her character off the court drew equal recognition. Whether spotted in a local café or at a community event in her Warriors uniform, Hinton has been described as a proud and respectful ambassador for the club.

"She is the very first person to pick up an opposition player if they've fallen, and regardless of the result, she is the first to congratulate the other team on a great game," Bow wrote in her nomination.

"Madi truly embodies the spirit of this club and what it means to be a Warrior."
The ceremony also took a moment to honour those junior athletes aging out of the Warriors program, with each player presented a special gift to commemorate their years of dedication and service to the club.

Notably absent from the ceremony were the under 18 girls, and for the best possible reason: they were competing at the Junior Country Championships in Shepparton, where they went on to win the Division 3/4 grand final, defeating the Horsham Hornets 40–36 to cap off an undefeated campaign.

The day also reflected an exceptional season for the Warriors program as a whole, which fielded 25 teams across the Junior Country Representative pathway and achieved record high performance selections. This included 26 athletes named to Basketball Victoria's Future Development Program, 15 selected for the Jamboree, and one athlete representing Victoria at state team level.