The 18.2 Girls had a good weekend, making the Grand Final on the back of some quality wins in tough conditions before just falling short in the big dance. Team Manager Helen Black wraps up the weekend:
We commenced the tournament on Friday night at 10pm at Knox and found Sherboroke (1) just to good winning 17-22. Sarah Looby was a withdrawal this game having only arrived home at noon from the USA and Xin-Ye Chai and Alex McLennan would not be competing over the weekend due to being overseas. Fortunately Anna Dixon would fill in for us on the Friday night and Sunday. The team however would go through the tournament two guards down.
Saturday arrived with 3 games in the 35 c temperatures (must have been 45c courtside at Dandenong). Our first game at 12.30 at Dandenong saw a convincing defeat of Pakenham 25-15 following by a 5.00pm game with a clinical win against Melbourne Tigers 34-18. It was evident that the girls were feeling the effects of the heat however Anne was mindful of this and subs were regular in the conditions. Saturday nights game was at Knox at 10.15pm and the air conditioned stadium was a luxury for the girls and they had a good win against Sherbrooke (2) 27-20.
As all teams had played in the same conditions in the previous 4 games Sunday was going to be survival of the fittest. Our first game would be against Rowville Rockets at 11.00am at Knox. Regrettably Kate would not be playing as she had long ago planned and paid for "A big day out". The game was certainly the best of the tournament so far for our girls and with Rowville jumping us early we fought back to lead late in the game only to have Mikaela fall heavily and hurt her elbow. The team went down 26-28. Our last qualifying game was at Dandenong at 3.30pm against Poowong. With the ladder locked for 2nd (Rowville were undefeated and in the grand final) it was a must win but firstly Sherbrooke(1) had to loose which luckily they did losing to Pakenham by 2 points. It was now up to us to win. In a game that really was never in doubt we had a 26-11 victory and were into the grand final against Rowville Rockets at 6.30pm.
After a slow start, trailing early by up to 7 pts the girls lifted their intensity after a time out and a few encouraging words from Anne and they pulled back the deficit to lead by 5 points. However the fight back took its toll and late in the game Rowville steadied and finally ran out winners 26-35. It was a great game and credit to Rowville but our girls gave their all and were gallant in defeat.
Thanks to Anne Fisher for doing a great job coaching as usual. Also thanks to Alex Keert who took over the roll of supervising the scoring roster and helping out whenever needed.
Thanks to the players Kate McKimmie, Sarah Looby, Immogene Keert, Mikaela Miller, Alex Murfet, Sarah Gordon, Nisha Duggan and Anna Dixon.
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