THE two tallest players on the rosters at the Ballarat Rush and Ballarat Miners have taken out the highest honour at the club, named MVP winners.
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Miner Jock Perry and Rush centre Alicia Froling have been named the two major winners of Basketball Ballarat's awards week.
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Perry joined the club after the first few rounds of competition and impressed with his outside shooting game, rare in a player of 216cm.
His outside game, particularly his three-point shooting in the second half of the season, were one of the main reasons behind the club surging up the ladder before the season was cut short.
Froling shouldered much of the heavy lifting for the undersized Rush line-up and at various times, including after an early season injury to Kristy Rinaldi, was the team's one tall player in a line-up that boasted young talent, but lacked height.
Making Froling's season remarkable was the centre revealed to The Courier at the end of the season that she was only just starting to get back to full fitness after two years with a wrist injury.
Still playing with a rod in her shooting arm, from an injury exacerbated in the US college system, the Townsville-product Froling averaged 13 points and just under 14 rebounds a game.
While Froling was always seen as the Rush's shining light and has secured herself another WNBL contract with the Canberra Capitals, for Perry it was a break-out season which could lead him to bigger and better things.
When he joined the Miners at the start of the season from the US College system, the club wasn't exactly sure what it was getting. A tall and strongly-built centre, who's outside shooting was a feature was not something you came across every day.
But after a two-week stint in quarantine, the Melbourne-born big man found his range to finish the season with an average of 16 points and eight rebounds a match with a season high of 25 points in his fourth match and picking up 14 rebounds in just his fifth game.
The NBL also stood-up and took notice of Perry's season, with the new franchise Tasmanian JackJumpers securing Perry on a rookie list deal, alongside fellow Ballarat Miner Matt Kenyon.