The dust has settled on another Eltham/Dandenong Basketball Tournament. 

 

The Under 12.1’s is a collective of boys, some who have played representative basketball before, and others entirely new to this level. The combination proved successful this particular weekend with expectations being exceeded. 

 

The boys came out firing Friday evening after the long Christmas break and blew Kilsyth 2 out of the water. They continued their winning streak on the Saturday with a win over Diamond Valley 2, followed by a very close, nail-biting win over Bulleen 3. This prompted the coach to get REALLY serious, and the boys had an inpromptu training session shooting baskets! It worked, and they followed it up with a huge 27 point win over Eltham 3 to secure a place in the Semi Final on Sunday morning against Kilsyth 2 who we beat in our initial game by 7 points.

 

Unfortunately in this rematch we had a very slow start and were trailing at half time 1:9. The boys dug deep, rallied back and with 1 second to go went to the free throw line trailing by 2 points! A gallant effort raised our hopes of a draw as the first ball fell through the ring! The second ball fell short and we unfortunately lost by the worst of margins! The winner of the A Final ended up being Whittlesea who narrowly beat Kilsyth 2.

 

Regardless of this result, the boys, Henry Byers-Armstrong, Charlie Cormack, Ethan Phillips, Sam Landale, Ryan Matthews, Billy Batchelor, Samuel Johnson, Patrick Hayne and Gus Smith, should be incredibly proud of themselves - they gave their all!  

 

Thank you from everyone to the Coach, Andrew Clinch, for his guidance and encouragement over the weekend.

 

No time for lamenting what could have been – its back to business!!