Indiana Harvey needs your help to get to Albury and represent SA

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Three Murray Bridge basketballers have been chosen to represent South Australia at the Australian Junior Country Basketball Cup in 2025 – and one of them is asking for your help to get there.

Indiana Harvey and Azalea Baker will both play for SA Country at the national tournament, which brings together the best basketballers from across regional Australia.

Another local, Mia Rathjen, will join the squad as a development player.

Indiana, who will join the under-14 team as an under-ager, lives and breathes basketball.

She trains and plays multiple times a week for local team Galaxy, representative teams Murray Bridge Bullets and Eastern Mavericks, and now the SA Country squad.

“She’s had talent since she started and she has kept improving,” mum Rhiannon said.

Dad Zavier said she was forever listening to and learning from Justine Searby and her other coaches, challenging herself and growing her understanding of the game.

But for the star player herself, the highlight was making new friends on the court … and shooting goals, of course.

It was early days yet, but she said she dreamed of playing in America one day.

In the meantime, Indiana’s family has launched a fundraising campaign to help her get to the competition in Albury, New South Wales from January 12-18.

They hope to cobble together $1775 to meet the cost of travel and accommodation.

Her mum said any help people could offer would make a huge difference.

“It definitely hasn’t been the best year, financially, for the family and I would hate to see her miss out on this amazing opportunity,” she said.

The family looked into grant funding, but that wasn’t an option given the short timeframe, Rhiannon Harvey said.

• Donate to Indiana Harvey’s family: asf.org.au.

Basketballers need a new court, too

While you’ve got your wallet out, the Murray Bridge Basketball Association is fundraising, too - they hope to find support to help them meet the $40,000 cost of replacing one of their courts.

Court two is badly degraded, with sticking-up nails that need to be hammered down before play begins each night.

The association had hoped to build a whole new show court, but a $3.9 million plan which would have been funded by the state and federal governments fell apart last year, and there has been little movement on the subject since.

• Donate to the MBBA: www.gofundme.com.

Note: The photo at the top of this story has been lightly edited.