Story by Ross Kendall
The North Coast Academy of Sport prepared its largest squad ever to compete at the 2021 Your Local Club Academy Games, held in the Hunter region last weekend.
In total, 109 athletes and 20 coaches and umpires from the North Coast attended the event contesting AFL Women (AFLW), hockey, netball and basketball.
‘This year’s squad saw 28 players in the AFLW squad and, for the first time in a number of years, both female and male hockey teams competing as well,’ executive director of the North Coast Academy of Sport (NCAS), D’Arcy Van den Bossche, said
‘While netball and basketball are traditionally strong sports for the NCAS, I can’t wait to see the hockey and AFLW athletes shine.
‘The North Coast Academy teams are always highly competitive, and we are looking forward to some strong results and great fun,’ Van den Bossche said.
In early results to hand the 16-year-old male and female NCAS basketball teams made it through to the semi-finals but the girls lost narrowly to the Central Coast 60-57, and the boys went down to Hunter 44-30.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
