Sarah and Alex vie for Australian championships

When they walked down the red carpet at the Final Four in Denver in 2012, Alex Green (’17)was rehabbing from the torn Achille’s tendon that had restricted her to just two games in her freshman season, and Sarah Boothe (’12) was wearing a boot as she often did to relieve the foot problems that plagued her for four years at Stanford.

I'll bet they never expected that they would each be vying for a league championship five years later in Australia.

Sarah took a year off from basketball after graduating from Stanford, during which she worked with a trainer to overcome her foot problems. She achieved her hope to play professional basketball and has played in Poland and then in Russia for the past four seasons.

Sarah moved way south this summer to play with the Bulleen Boomers in the BigV (Victoria) League, which is one of seven Australian State Basketball regional leagues.

In Australian slang, boomer means something successful or something large, and Sarah proved to be a huge inside force for the Boomers.

Sarah led the BigV league in rebounds with 14.4 per game and shooting percentage (51.8). She led her team in scoring with 16.3 points per game and in blocked shots with 1.5 per game.

The Boomers made it to the Grand Final best-of-three series against the Sunbury Jets. The Boomers lost the first game by a narrow margin last weekend. In the second game yesterday, Sarah sank a jumper that tied the score at 54-54 with just over a minute left to play. In the final minute, the Boomers missed two shots while the Jets missed one, but made a free throw that gave them the championship ...

... and the Boomers had to settle for the silver.

Alex spent much of her collegiate basketball career on the bench recovering from injuries — the torn Achille’s tendon and a subsequent torn ACL. In her five seasons at Stanford, Alex was able to play in only 77 games for an average of 4.6 minutes per game.

But that wasn’t the end of basketball for Alex. She spent last summer, a year after graduating from Stanford, playing in a professional development league for women basketball players. And this summer she began her professional basketball career with the Southern Tigers in the Premier League, which is another of the Australian State Basketball regional leagues.

Alex was the Tigers’ starting point guard — their leader in position and in performance.

She played the most on her team (30.1 mpg), led the team in assists (4.3 (second-best in the league)) and steals (2.5) and was their second-best scorer (14.2 ppg).

The Tigers won their league preliminary final by two points in double overtime. Alex had a remarkable game: 46 minutes, 34 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and five steals.

The grand final last Saturday night was a close game throughout. The Tigers were up by just one, 62-61, with 10 seconds left to play. Alex was fouled, made the first free throw, missed the second one, but grabbed the rebound, was fouled again, and made both free throws. So the Tigers won 65-61 to complete a remarkable return from the depths of South Australian basketball as they ended a 21-year championship drought.

Here's a recap of the grand final that speaks highly of Alex's contribution: Tigers claim historic championship as North lose again