As the girl’s names were read out at the beginning of the encounter, audience members cheered loudly for every player, promising a friendly match.

Australia dominated the first quarter, scoring 10 – 0 in the first 2 minutes. The Papua New Guineans fought back hard gaining more and more rebounds and points against the Australians, making the final scores for that quarter, 36 – 4.

Marrina Boino Papua New Guinea gained many rebounds and was responsible for taking the ball to the Papua New Guinea offensive half.

The second quarter started off with a bang, the crowd going wild as the players came onto the court, The Australian girls scored many points and dominated in the statistics, but they could never beat the Papua New Guineans in spirit and determination.

Every time a girl fell down, from their team or not, the Papua New Guinean’s were there to help them up, any girl who scored they would congratulate and any girl who received a foul, they would console.

When the third quarter began, the scores were 66 to 13, but the Australians never let up and the Papua New Guineans never stopped trying.

Despite the temperature of the basketball court reached over 31 degrees, both of the teams were still playing as best as they could, the crowd was cheering for both the Australian Team, as well as the Papua New Guinea team.

At the end of the third quarter, the scores were, Australia on 96 points, and Papua New Guinea on 15 points. It was a very though quarter, both of the teams all fought really hard, and they all scored some great goals.

During the fourth quarter all the girls became tired and the game slowed down a lot, the stadium was sweltering hot and the girls from both teams looked exhausted.

The final scores for the game were Australia on 124 points, and Papua New Guinea on 23 points. Both team all played really well today in the heat.

By Bo Xue and Victoria Heard from The Reporters’ Academy