The Bathurst player is excited to join the ranks of the Sparks – a newly-created development squad for Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) side Sydney Flames.

Matthews and the Sparks will begin their campaign in the South East Australia Basketball League (SEABL) late next month, the nation’s second-tier competition.

The shooting guard and small forward option follows in the footsteps of Bathurst’s Haylee Lepaio, who played in the SEABL last season with the Albury-Wodonga Lady Bandits.

“It’s very exciting because it’s the next step up from the Waratah State League. I’ll get to play with more experienced players,” Matthews said.

“It’s another step towards getting closer to my goal of playing in the WNBL. It’s going to be very tough and physical and full of players who have played in the WNBL before.”

The Sparks’ link with the University of Sydney is designed as an alternative to the US college system as it gives players an opportunity to study but continue to develop their basketball game.

Matthews will hope it’s the start of a memorable year.

In an injury-affected 2016 Matthews played both Country Premier League and State League, where she was part of the Bathurst Goldminers grand final outfit.

In between all of that Matthews had been doing work with the Flames and has now been rewarded for her efforts there.

“Two years ago I started in the Flames academy, which helped me get noticed a bit. I had a year off to focus on year 12 and then did the academy again this year,” she said.

“My original plan after school was to go to college in America but then I had a chat with Karen Dalton, who’s the Flames general manager at the moment, and she said if I was able to play WNBL she wouldn’t send me away.

“After my year with my broken collarbone, appendicitis and injured ligaments in my ankle my confidence was down, but after hearing that it really boosted confidence heaps and now I’ve just been going hard at it.

“WNBL definitely feels like something I can make now that I’m at the SEABL level, which is very exciting.”

Matthews is excited to take on a variety of teams and players over the coming season.

“We’ve started our training. We all bond very well and have been working hard,” she said.

“We go right down to Melbourne to play. Most of the games will be in Victoria for our away games, but we’ve got quite a few home games as well. We also head up to Canberra to play the Basketball Centre of Excellence team.”

Matthews begins her SEABL season on March 25 when the Sparks travel to play the Bandits in what could be considered the inaugural New South Wales derby.

However, there’s plenty to look forward to before that.

Matthews will be beginning her Australian Under 20s Basketball Championships quest from this Sunday in Bendigo when NSW take on rivals Queensland.

Following on from the opener, Matthews and her team will take on Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT.