How the Horsham Hornets went back to back in 2001

For the first time, the Horsham Hornets went back-to-back, taking home the Division One championship in a best-of-three finals series.

Coach, and Wimmera basketball stalwart, Owen Hughan remembers the game as one of the best in his career.

"That was a very, very good game," Hughan recalled. "We were just able to hang on. I thought we were the better team on the day, but they came at us at the end and we were able to just hold them off and have a very good win."

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The Spectres surged in the final quarter to get within three points with a minute left on the clock.

An arena held its breath as Nunawading star Rob Hodgson found space under the net, but a hurried pass went out of his reach, and with 14 seconds to go, Hornet guard Aaron Bruce drew a foul and shot truly.

The Hornets won the dramatic encounter 109-105, securing their place in Big V history books.

"The team that year was probably the best we had at Horsham," Hughan said. "A lot of those guys went on and played very high basketball and were stars in of themselves."

The win also meant that the young Hornets side had not lost a finals game over the two seasons.

It was a young team, chock full of talent and enthusiasm with few over eighteen.

"We had kids who were fourteen years old and they were playing against men," Hughan said. "We got thrashed, but when it came through it came through."

Hughan's nurturing of basketball talent helped propel Horsham to four consecutive championships between 2000 and 2003, often with very different lineups.

The star of the side was 16-year-old Aaron Bruce, who scored a game-high 27 points and was awarded the most valuable player in the finals series' award.

Bruce would have a successful basketball career, playing college basketball in the United States for Baylor University in Texas and NBL sides the Adelaide 36ers and the Sydney Kings. Liam Norton, another young star in the Hornets 2001 side, went on to play for the Melbourne Tigers.

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Another future star, Shane McDonald, would play for the Singapore Slingers, Perth Wildcats and Melbourne Tigers, before ending up at the Nunawading Spectres for over a decade.

"Shane was probably one of the best CBL players to ever pull the boots on. He was an outstanding player." Hughan said.

Hughan is proud of the young players whose careers he'd fostered in his time at the Hornets, including Bruce's younger brothers Cam and Shaun; however, part of his success at Horsham, Hughan said, is due to his experience coaching at a higher level.

Hughan coached the North Melbourne Giants (then-Coburg Giants) between 1984-85 in the NBL, leading them to finals in both seasons. It was his decision to consistently play young players that lead to the Hornets success.

"It pays off in the long run. They were very fundamentally sound players. A lot of the kids who came out of our program were very sound players, and played very high level basketball, because we never expected them to hang around," Hughan said.

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"There's always a new group coming through. One year you might have them, the next you might have half of them. You're constantly thinking about the kids coming through, being very mindful of bringing them up as quickly as possible."

While the Nunawading Spectres had coasted to the final, the young Hornets had scraped to make the finals, defeating Blackburn in a series of spirited games in the semi-finals.

"I think they'd hardly lost a game that year," Hughan recalled of the Spectres.

It was to be the Hornets who held their nerve, defeating the Spectres at Horsham Arena 115-96 in the best-of-three series before sealing the championship in Nunawading.

The Hornets 2001 flag, its second in as many years, helped secure the start of a dynasty and launch the careers of many future stars of Aussie basketball.

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