Lara Pauline playing for the Cranbourne Cavaliers in last week’s first semi-final against Blackburn. 85243 Pictures: JARROD POTTER
By JARROD POTTER
HEADING into the Big V grand final series against Coburg this week, Cranbourne Cavaliers’ captain Lara Pauline has endured quite a few hurdles just to get on court. Pauline shared with Jarrod Potter her philosophy on basketball, squeezing in coaching, working as a paediatric nurse, playing the game and fitting everything she loves into a very tight schedule.
YOU can only wonder how Lara Pauline, 25, from Berwick, finds enough hours in the day to squeeze all the different facets of her life in.
A captain, a nurse, a coach and all things in between – this is the sum total of Pauline’s life and she loves it exactly this hectic.
Pauline has played basketball for nearly two decades and in that time she’s endured a number of lows – she sustained two anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, one for each knee.
But with the Cavaliers gunning towards a championship victory in their first Big V season, things are starting to look decidedly up.
“I started when I was eight or nine,” Pauline said. “Mum got me into my very first team, Narre Jacks, and then started playing rep teams a year later at the Dandenong Rangers under-12s.
“Played there right up until 18s when I did my ACL – just playing basketball, no-one around me, jumped and tore my ACL so I was out for a year.
“Was slowly getting back and came back down to Cranbourne, played a couple of seasons of MMBL and did my other ACL.
“I never really had the ambition to go anywhere with my basketball, but made the decision after my second knee reco that I wanted to do it and now was the opportunity and we’ve pushed really hard at Cranbourne to get Big V up and going.”
The Big V Cavaliers finished the home-and-away season on top of the Division 2 ladder with a 13-5 record, which Pauline attributes to a strong team dynamic and willingness to train as hard as it takes to generate the desired results.
“It’s the first year of Big V women, it’s big news for us,” Pauline said. “We’ve got a lot of rookie players, most of us haven’t played Big V, only a couple have in the past and it’s a very young side, so we did a lot of team bonding at the start of the year to prepare for the season.
“Did a lot of pre-season matches – our first we were absolutely smashed by Southern Peninsula, which was really good, being a Division 1 side, we realised how physical it was going to be and we really needed to lift our game and every game we’ve come out since then I think we’ve improved.
“We’re tougher, we go harder at the ball and we put in the hours at training to get there as well.”
Just sustaining the work-rate needed to compete in a strong competition would be commendable, but Pauline throws into the mix coaching duties, guiding the Met 2 under-12s Cavaliers girls to an unbeaten season so far, working as a paediatric nurse at Monash Medical Centre and completing a Masters degree as well.
“I’m studying my Masters as well, so it’s a bit full on,” Pauline said. “I’m studying at Monash University and I’m a paediatric nurse at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton.
“Makes everything a bit hard with shift work, all my trainings and everything, but I manage and the team’s really good in that way.”
Her love of children is evident in the way she speaks about her work and her young charges at the Cavaliers.
“Always wanted to be a nurse as long as I can remember,” Pauline said. “My Nanna is a nurse and always a bit of inspiration from her as well and always wanted to work with children, so it just worked out well that way.
“I love my job, it’s amazing to work with kids and try to make a difference.”
Balance is a big aspect of Pauline’s life – working at all hours of the day at the hospital then racing up the highway to get ready to play or coach puts her life in a precarious state at times, but she wouldn’t trade it.
“Nights, mornings, evenings, weekends, everything,” Pauline said. “It’s tricky, but work has been really good with everything, I haven’t missed a game so I can work the mornings and come play in the afternoons or nights.
“That’s my life – I coach as well, coach under-12 girls, which are amazing, that’s three times a week, which I work around as well, but I wouldn’t change it.”
Her move to Cranbourne basketball came about through her passion for the sport subsiding at Dandenong, but she has found renewed vigour for the hoops in the silver and blue.
“I guess I sort of lost my passion at Dandenong,” Pauline said. “It was very full-on and very competitive – they taught me everything I know about basketball, and I wouldn’t change anything in that way, but I never really had the passion to want to go further, it was just what I did.
“Then I came to Cranbourne, small club, small community and I just found it my home – it’s an amazing community to be involved in and they’ve given me every opportunity I’ve needed playing wise, coaching wise, and everyone involved works so hard to get us here.
“No-one takes anything for granted and I really like that about the club as well
“We’re looking to get bigger and more competitive, but at the same time it’s still that family feel and everyone knows everyone and at the end of the day we remember it’s about coaching kids to get them off the street, to be active and enjoy their basketball.”
At the halfway stage of this season, Pauline and the Cavaliers made it their aim to make the grand final and not just settle for top spot or a finals berth.
“We had a really good start to the season and midway through we weren’t content with just sitting top of the ladder,” Pauline said. “We thought we could really push for finals and that was our goal.
“To finish first in our first year is fantastic and I’m really proud of all the girls.
“Midway through we decided we had a really good shot at this and thought we could make it to the finals and be really competitive in the finals as well.
“As a rookie group we’re really proud of ourselves and how far we’ve come and we’ve really had to earn our respect and it certainly wasn’t given to us and we were happy to go out and get it.”
The big series against Coburg, starting on Saturday night at the Coburg Basketball Centre will test the Cavaliers, but Pauline says the team knows how to beat the Giants and just has to play smart basketball.
“They’re a big, physical side, so we know we’ve got to be physical and smart and just got to make the right moves to the rack as well and respecting their offence and playing just good, straight up D,” Pauline said. “It’s a big game, especially because we have to beat them twice, but we’re excited, we’re nervous a bit of everything.
“We had a big last three-four minutes against them last time, so we know we can do it.
“I guess we just take a little while to fire up and once we do, no-one can keep up with us. But we’ve got to get our heads in from the start and play the basketball we know we can.”
Pauline wanted to thank everyone in her extremely hectic, but fulfilling life that made it possible for her to be a fantastic nurse, player, coach and most importantly, a good person.
“I want to thank Cranbourne, the committee, my coach Mark Holman and all my players. I feel privileged to be able to call myself captain of such an amazing side and a good bunch of girls,” Pauline said.
“Thank my mum, Carolyn, and dad, Wayne, for travelling around the state as a junior supporting me and bringing me up with all the values I have today to make me who I am.
“Also thank my MMBL coaches Jodi and Dean – we won back-to-back MMBL and they take all the credit.”
The Cavaliers are back at home next week on Saturday night for the second leg of the grand final series at 7.30pm.
