A successful weekend at the Melbourne Tigers Tournament culminated with the 16.2 Boys winning the silverwear.

The 16.2 boys come into the tournament missing three of their starters. However, our hard working team manager (Michelle) managed to get a couple of 16.1 players on board.

It wasn't a great start for the boys on Friday night against Eltham (4). The boys looked sluggish and out of sync. Eltham picked us apart with some great shooting and through sheer brute force by pounding on the boards and ran away easy winners by 24 points.

Our next game was against the Oakleigh Warriors. The boys got off to a fantastic start and led the game by about 20 points at one stage. However, the Warriors came back strong in the final 10 minutes of the game, but it was too little too late and the boys ended up holding them off by 5 points.

The late game on Saturday night was against Bendigo. We initially got off to a sluggish start, but it was a relatively tight contest throughout. However, Bendigo made a late run and managed to win by 7 points.

Having only won 1 of 3 games we were expecting to contest for the 5th and 6th spot in the group. We didn't at all believe that we had a chance to get into the top four. However, with favourable head-to-head matchups going in our favour, we ended up finishing third in the group behind two unbeaten teams (Eltham and Bendigo) and were in the running for the title. :)

Sunday came around and we faced the unbeaten Bendigo squad in the semi-final. Within the previous game we got off to a slow start, but the boys were determined that it wouldn't happen again. We got the start we needed and controlled the game throughout. Bendigo did make a run at us late in the game, but it was a little too late as the boys held on to win by 6 points.

And so here we were in the final playing the unbeaten Eltham team. Who would have thought that we would be here after our first disastrous outing against them on Friday night. However, we were in a very different state-of-mind on the day and the boys were determined to make amends for the previous game.

The game was a physically tough contest that went back and forth, although Eltham held the advantage for most of the first half. In the second half the boys made a strong run and looked to have the game won before Eltham made one final push in the dying minutes. However, the boys held their nerve and held on to win the game by 4 points.

Great effort by the boys for persisting through all the adversity they faced during the tournament, and for learning from each game and lifting their efforts as the tournament went on. Congrats on a remarkable tournament run against the odds.