Ravaged by injury and sickness, the Under 12.1 Girls headed into the Nunawading Tournament unsure of how they would be able to compete with the other teams in A Grade.

They ended up competing their way to the final minute of the Grand Final.

The girls, coached by Scott Gunther, have recently exceeded expectations by qualifying for the top level of VC for the second half of the season, putting them amongst the top 10 teams in the state. Their consistent results over the weekend indicated this result was no fluke.

Saturday morning saw the girls hold on for a gritty two point win over the South Adelaide Panthers, before accounting for Sandringham more comfortably in the lunchtime game. As the day drew on, the Falcons showed no signs of slowing down despite missing key players with injury and sickness. With two games later in the day Saturday, the girls registered double figure wins against both Nunawading 2 and Norwood Flames.

The tough Saturday schedule may have been partly to blame for a less than glamorous outing on Sunday morning, however tired legs and all the Falcons hung tough for a low scoring win against Norths Bears. With the goal of heading into finals undefeated, the girls scored another solid win against Knox 2 and got to enjoy a whopping two hours off before their semi-final.

Coming up against Norwood once again, the Falcons rose to the occasion of finals intensity, and worked their way to a Grand Final spot with a nine point win. The time had come for a good night's sleep before the Grand Final on Monday morning.

Fellow VC Top 10 team Broadmeadows greeted Waverley in the Grand Final, it would be a tough ask for the girls who had been fairly soundly beated by the Broncos earlier in the VC season. This one was a much closer contest right from the outset. Just one point seperated the teams at half time, before the Broncos began to gain some ascendancy in the second half. Trailing by eight with just a few minutes remaining, the Falcons put in for one last big effort. Clutch buckets, big blocks and relentless transition play proved the backbone of a monumental run to bring the Falcons back to within two points, however destiny did not smile on the Falcons and Broadmeadows were able to just hold on by three points.

It was a great weekend by the girls and when the reinforcements come back in they should be well plac ed to have a good crack at the VC top 10.