Love & Partners/Goodyear

U14 Rep Girls Win GOLD!!

Venue : Bris Vegas, 17 Mar 2012

The Game : Challenge Cup Final

The Score : Noosa 74 vs Maroochydore 48

From the coach - It was a hard fought game vs Maroochydore Cutters A in the first half and in the second we really picked up the momentum and took the lead. Our height, rebounds and fast breaks brought home gold for Noosa!!!

Article to the Paper -  

The Love and Partners / Good Year U14 girls Noosa Cyclones have won the U14 Girls BQJBC Challenge Cup Championship, beating neighbouring rival Maroochydore Cutters 74-48 in the grand final on Saturday 17th March in Brisbane.

The Cyclones, who looked unlikely to even compete in the BQJBC competition 6 months ago with only 4 players available in the pre-season, won there 8th successive match to win the associations first U14g Challenge Cup Title.

Guard Abbie Cardamone was immense in a sensational team effort, with 18 points and several defensive plays to lead her team to the championship.

Back Court partner Chelsea Reiffel was equally brilliant with 16 points, while Jacqueline Sjogren, Amy Benjamin, and Bree Caple each had 10 points to assert Noosa’s scoring prowess over Maroochydore.

Coach Kelly Caple admitted she was unsure how the team would fair against the Maroochydore team who had an equally impressive winning record as the teams did not meet during the season.

"As we were not sure about Maroochydore’s technique as we have never played them before, we set our focus to play our style of game” Caple said.

And true to their word the Cyclones did, after a nervous start to the game by both teams it was hard to separate the teams and Noosa lead Maroochydore 9 to 7 points at the end of the first quarter.

At the beginning of the 2nd quarter rising star Abbie Cardamone scored 6 straight points to give Noosa the edge and team settled into their pressure defence and attacking offensive style that has seen the team rise to success. The team racked up 24 points in the 2nd quarter to lead Maroochydore 33 to 17 at half time.

Maroochydore competed hard in the 2nd half however couldn’t close the gap and Noosa Cyclones played hard and kept lifting to keep on top of their opponents, with every team member contributing.

For coach Caple, it was a proud moment at the completion of the game. " I'm just so pleased for the girls, they have stuck together all season, it was such a great team effort, every team member Trained hard, played hard, Im proud of their efforts all season," Caple said.

Assistant coach, Lachie Caple, aged 14 years, has worked with the girls every week at training to improve the girls skills offensively and defensively. This shone through on Saturdays grand final game.

The Cyclones will now continue with their preparations for the State Classics tournament over the Easter break.