Junior Basketball concluded on Thursday with the spring competition grand finals being played.
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The Snows Excavation side held onto the lead with two minutes left on the clock to record a very tense win against the Demons.
Maddy Redman (MVP) was a telling difference with the extra height advantage proving to be the game breaker by game’s end.
Ava Kelly and Lexi Salvestro chimed in with strong play for Snows.
Demon Abbi Zanesco almost stole the game from Snows with a couple of clutch shots in the last quarter that closed the gap to one point several times.
Until injury, Pria Cerato was also playing well for the Demons.
The 11 boys final was taken out by favourites Base boys.
Two points separated the two sides at the half-time break with Warburtons looking to cause an upset.
Unsettled play disturbed the usual play of Base until in the third quarter they started to put their game together with the strong play of Jacob Testoni (MVP).
Jacob was hitting his drives and making a difference.
James Roach and Xavier Serafin where rebounding well, as was Emanuel Orake.
The Warburtons Kia Suine and Seve Pastro gave everything they had but couldn’t contain the Base drive.
Josh Trotter and Lachlan Chant have shown improvement with the training they have gotten and helped out with some timely shots.
Storm held onto a 17-12 lead half way through the game thanks to the shooting power of Jenna Richards (MVP) which proved the difference as the Storm took the game 33-26 at full time.
It was great to see a girls final that was played right to the last minute of play.
Emilly Curran was pulling down great rebounds along with Bonnie Brown.
Rockets gave a solid third quarter push to close the gap by three points through Laura Royal and Tanna Collins but it wasn’t enough to steal the victory from the Storm girls.
The 13 boys final likewise went to the favourites Tigers as they won the final 45-25 against the SPS boys.
SPS had a great win in the semi-final to make the final but could not contain Isaac Testoni and Mitch Salvestro (MVP) who was seeing all net.
Thomas Baker, Oscar De Fazio rebounded strongly, Thomas Baker and Jesse Vardanega had their best games to date.
SPS relied on the drive of Sam Payne and Ryan Minato and the rebounding of Callum Thorpe but missed opportunities hurt their scoring as too many shots didn’t find their mark during the game.
In the main game of the evening the 15 boys final didn’t go to script with the Cannons entering the game as underdogs and upsetting the competition leaders the Kings.
Leading the game for the first two quarters it looked like the Kings had the game in the bag.
Douglas Harvie and Christian Webb were dominating the drive and looking to continue into the second half of the game.
Third quarter saw the Cannons pick up their game ad land some timely shots through Jack Gilbert and Bailey Talent landing tree pointers to close the gap.
It was the speed of Jon Taylor (MVP) in defence and again timely shots that changed the game to the Cannons advantage.
Micheal Zapalla was defending strongly under the basket and landed three great baskets of even better passes to put the side in front.
With Christian Webb leaving the game with five fouls all the Cannons needed to do was defend and make sure they scored when they had the ball each time to take the match.
Douglas never gave up for the Kings but ran out of time and the game went to the Cannons.
Meg Dal Broi was awarded the Barry and Gloria Kemp junior club person of the year.
Meg was a deserved winner of the award. She was a feature every week either playing, refereeing and doing her share of the bench.