Tessa Lavey

Fast Facts

Sport: Basketball
Event: Women 5x5
Olympic History:  Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020
Year Born: 1993
Born: Swan Hill, VIC

About Tessa

The Victorian-born Bendigo Spirit guard made her WBNL debut with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 2009 after accepting a basketball scholarship she received through a national talent identification program.

In the same year, she made her international debut when she represented Australia as point guard at the first FIBA Oceania Under-16’s Championship, against New Zealand.

She travelled to France in 2010 with the Australian team for the Under-17s World Championships, where they were knocked out in the quarter-finals by the host country. In 2014, she was a member of the bronze-winning Australian team, losing to the USA team who would go on to win gold.

She spent three years with the AIS, before heading over to the Canberra Capitals for two more years and signing with the Bendigo Spirit in 2013. The Spirit were back-to-back WNBL Champions in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

She played 41 games across two seasons there, before being recruited to Perth Lynx, where she was named captain. In 2019 Tessa returned to Bendigo.

Tessa was a part of the Rio 2016 basketball team, that was knocked out of the quarter finals by Serbia in a nail-biting 73-71 loss.

Tessa represented Australia at her first Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018, where the Opals won gold in front of a home crowd. Thrashing England in the final 99-55.

Later that year, Tessa travelled to Spain with the Opals for the 2018 FIBA World Cup, where they finished with a silver medal, losing the final to ten-time winners USA, 73-56.

In mid-2020 she began training with the AFLW Richmond Tigers, and was drafted to the team as the 43rd overall pick in the 2020 draft.

Tessa would not play her first AFLW game until 2022, after she became a dual Olympian in Tokyo.

The Opals, drawn in group C, lost their opening match to Belgium and then suffered a critical two-point loss in their second game against China. They went on to win the last match comfortably against Puerto Rico. Australia finished third in their group resulting in a challenging quarter-final match against the USA, which they lost 55-79, ending their Olympic campaign in eighth place. America would go on to win the gold medal.

Playing in three games during the tournament, Tessa received 28 minutes of playing time and scored 6 points.