Jewel Williams set to take off in 2024

Feature image via: Tom Reees

NBL1 West star Jewel Williams says her 2023 season will be a launching point for her career. 

The 22-year-old averaged 17.8 points for the conference champions Cockburn Cougars, and dropped 12 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in their Grand Final win. 

With WNBL experience at the Perth Lynx, her goal is to lock down a professional contract after her spectacular NBL1 campaign. 

“My goal for this coming season is to get myself ready to make that jump to playing professionally somewhere,” Williams told the Cougars. 

“I want to be able to put enough time and effort to follow that goal, and that means getting my body stronger, faster and those kind of things.

“I will be working on my basketball more because this year I didn’t get to do that as much as I would have liked. So a big focus this off-season and then the NBL1 season will be getting back to that place where I can compete at that level again.”

The club had been on the search for a women’s title for many years, celebrating its 50th anniversary as a club last season. The women’s team claimed their first state title in history in August. 

Jewel Williams is catching fire ?

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Williams said it was influential to see club legends like Kirsty Whitfield celebrate the win. For her, it took a few weeks and a National Finals campaign to finally have it all sink in. 

“But for me personally, it didn’t even set in for a few days after which is when I actually started to settle on knowing that we actually won, and how cool that was,” she said.

“You never know if it will ever happen again so it was an amazing feeling.”

Eyeing next season, Williams said that Cokburn have gained the respect of the West, and are going to embrace the underdog mindset with the added pressure. 

“I think that people will have a little bit more respect for us now and not just look at us as being Cockburn who hasn’t historically been the best in the women’s league,” Williams said.

“We felt like we’ve still been underdogs all year and that’s just kind of who we are, and we wanted to make a statement this year and we definitely did that.

“We’ll also have a big target on our backs because we didn’t lose many games so a lot of teams are going to want to get us, but that’s great and we’ll embrace that challenge and roll with the punches.”

Read the full article via the Cockburn Cougars here. 

Stay up-to-date with all the latest signings via the 2023 NBL1 Roster Tracker here.