Saturday morning saw a focused 14.3 boy’s team who came to play with good running and lots of intensity to win their first game - Waverley 44 def Camberwell2 18. Our second game saw us come up against Knox5 (an East 1 team). Knox played well and gave us a good run but our transition game for the full 40 minutes and strong rebounding enabled us to win, Waverley 48 def Knox5 36.
A Sunday morning game is obviously not preferred for these boys who were clearly longing for their doonas and another hour of sleep; they began very flat and failed to make the most of their scoring opportunities; our defense was not as coordinated as normal and we lost to Corio Bay2 39 def Waverley 31... the team was shattered!
Our fourth game was also a battle with a few players unavailable; we failed to finish off in offense by putting the ball in the basket, but we managed to do just enough to stay ahead and win, Waverley 38 def Warrandyte3 32.
The Sunday night game against Ringwood 3 was a titanic battle and we could barely get a call to go our way, racking up some 12 fouls in the first half to 0 fouls for Ringwood leaving us down by 2 points; we weren't playing great but we weren't playing that badly! Coach Rogan gathered the boys together and focused the team to "Just play U-14.3 Falcons basketball!" and, to their credit, that's what the boys did, gaining the lead in the final few minutes, lose it, get it back and then score the game winning basket (making it a 4 point margin) with some 20 seconds on the clock - Waverley 32 def Ringwood3 28. This win placed us on top of our pool on a head to head basis and into the Grand Final on Monday.
Monday saw us take on Pool 2's undefeated Tasmanian team North West Thunder... at first glance, an alarmingly sizable team! The inspiring win the night before brought out the best in the Falcons......or maybe it was just the afternoon start time!
Coach Rogan adopted the attitude: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters!"
The Falcons played a high tempo game and with our post defenders denying the giant
Tasmanian centre; the boys put lots of pressure on the ball, aggressively rebounded, executing steals and continuous fast breaks (pin point passes and left hand layups were not a problem today for some reason) and patience with their half court offenses (well most of the time!) The Falcons were up 37 to NW Thunder's 20 at half time. NW Thunder made a hard charge after half time to reduce the margin to 10 points, but after a quick timeout the boys re-focused and ran out convincing winners 62 to 36 to secure their first tournament win after 2 runners-up trophies collected earlier in the season. Some quick stats - shot over 50% in Field goals, Made 8 Rejections, 17 Defensive and 13 Offensive Rebounds, made 14 steals, and Assists - too many to add up!
Congratulations to Aaron Stephenson, Abraham Kaplandjian, Carter Dickinson, Charlie Smith, Fraser Nott, Lachie Horne, Lachie McDonald, Mitchell Horne, Mitchell Pollard and Remo Simankevicius on a sensational tournament.
We made it into the Grand Final because we had different players making valuable contributions at various times in different games when we needed to - we won the division final because we had 10 players all contributing and playing as one team. Thanks in particular to Lachie Horne for supplementing our team and playing so well over the weekend.
Thanks also to our mighty cheer squad who were very encouraging and vocal at every game, to the Mums and Dads who safely transported the players between venues, our sensational "SuperCoach" Mike Rogan for the passion and focus he brings to each game, our fabulous team manager Barbara Dickinson, our great Asst. coach Min Simankevicius and our resident statistician, Peter Horne (and his assistants)!
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