{"id":17578,"date":"2020-10-21T15:30:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T05:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=17578"},"modified":"2020-10-21T15:30:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T05:30:15","slug":"wnbl-player-spotlight-southside-flyers-jenna-ohea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wnbl-player-spotlight-southside-flyers-jenna-ohea\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBL Player Spotlight – Southside Flyers – Jenna O’Hea"},"content":{"rendered":"

ONE of the must-see players throughout the entire WNBL, Jenna O\u2019Hea<\/strong> backs up all the hype that is bestowed upon her each season. Not only does O\u2019Hea\u2019s experience continue to enrich and inspire her peers, but she also comes into the upcoming season with an extra level of motivation pushing her after last season\u2019s upset Grand Final sweep at the hands of the Canberra Capitals.<\/p>\n

Having a rich and triumphant history at the Dandenong Rangers (Southside\u2019s predecessor), O\u2019Hea is keen to transfer that glory to the newly introduced Flyers organisation having won titles back in 2010\/11 with the Bulleen Boomers and 2011\/12 with the Rangers. Adding to this, the 33-year-old is no stranger to leadership or pressure either, as O’Hea goes into another year of captaincy for the Australian Opals squad ahead of preparations for next year\u2019s Olympics and the subsequent Asia Cup Qualifiers.<\/p>\n

The first returning player to be announced in early-June for Southside\u2019s roster, it made perfect sense to kick off the offseason festivities from the club\u2019s perspective by welcoming back their leader. However, in terms of verbal output, O\u2019Hea made it clear and concise on just how much last season\u2019s ending had an effect of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we had a successful season, particularly for our first year as a team, missing out on the Championship really hurt. It has certainly added to the desire to go one better and start what I hope is a fantastic 2021 for the Flyers and the Opals,\u201d O\u2019Hea said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hea endured hardship on not only a mental level but also a physical one, having missed five regular season games as well as last season\u2019s semi-final series against the Adelaide Lighting thanks to a broken wrist, which was initially diagnosed as \u201cseason-ending\u201d and expected to take 10-12 weeks to heal.<\/p>\n

Following her surgery, she was notified that her return could be as close to six weeks away if a little luck and strong healing could swing in her favour regarding an earlier than expected return date. Missing out on the team\u2019s series against the Lightning, O\u2019Hea received the green light to play in Game 1 of the Grand Final series against the Capitals.<\/p>\n

Coming off the bench in the series opener substituting for Aimee Clydesdale<\/strong>, O\u2019Hea amassed 34 minutes of court time scoring 14 points and grabbing six rebounds. Three days later O\u2019Hea earned a modest eight points and nine rebounds in Game 2, but despite her contributions, the Flyers could not deny Canberra their second straight title in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

In what can be best described as an \u201cadmirable\u201d season, O\u2019Hea concluded her WNBL20 campaign with averages of 13.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.9 assists whilst shooting 48.6 per cent from the field.<\/p>\n

If anyone understands how motivated O\u2019Hea is to make it that one step further in her bid for her third title, it is her head coach Cheryl Chambers<\/em><\/strong>. \u201cShe\u2019s really, really determined,\u201d Chambers said to Draft Central<\/em>. \u201cIt was really difficult when she got injured. I think she was playing the best I\u2019ve ever seen her play when she went down with that hand injury. I know she thinks there\u2019s a lot of unfinished business and she\u2019s certainly training the house down at the moment.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got the utmost respect for Jenna\u2019s basketball IQ and I think that she\u2019s probably one of the best players IQ-wise that we have ever seen in Australia. She knows when to pass it, she understands defensive rotations, she helps her players be better and she can score. So, I\u2019m probably one of her biggest fans in regard to her basketball mentality,\u201d Chambers summarised.<\/p>\n

Leading the undisputed championship favourites into action next season with nothing in mind but bringing a piece of hardware back to South-East Melbourne at the end the year, we will get to see if the Opals\u2019 captain has what it takes to do so nine seasons since her last trek to the top of the WNBL summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ONE of the must-see players throughout the entire WNBL, Jenna O\u2019Hea backs up all the hype that is bestowed upon her each season. Not only does O\u2019Hea\u2019s experience continue to enrich and inspire her peers, but she also comes into the upcoming season with an extra level of motivation pushing her after last season\u2019s upset […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":17581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2871,2812,11],"tags":[394,1348,3523,3539,342,1187,31,2848,2067,745,1972],"class_list":["post-17578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-southside-flyers","category-wnbl","tag-adelaide-lightning","tag-aimee-clydesdale","tag-australia-opals","tag-bulleen-boomers","tag-cheryl-chambers","tag-dandenong-rangers","tag-jenna-ohea","tag-opals","tag-southside-flyers","tag-university-of-canberra-capitals","tag-wnbl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}