From Grant McMillan, 14.1 Boys Head Coach

The 14.1 boys made a successful journey to Colac to qualify from the Western Division for the Basketball Victoria Country Championships to be played next April in Ballarat.

After playing a VJBL game in Frankston the night before, the boys made a slow start in their 9.00am game against Terang paid the price for some defensive efforts, turnovers and lack of conversion at the foul line. After working their way back into the game in the second half, they eventually went down by 11 points in a very winnable game. We knew that Terang would be our hardest opponent but not an ideal start to the day.

The next game was a much better performance against Colac where the boys played a much improved game defensively and were able to get their fast offensive transition game going. The team was also able to execute some of our offensive systems to be able to convert to baskets and the end result proved to be a 25 point win.

The third game of the day provided the closest contest of the 4 games against Portland. After establishing a lead early and maintaining that 10 point advantage at half time, the teams defensive efforts dropped off a little and our lack of genuine height was starting to tell. All the momentum late in the game was with Portland and they came back to draw the game. With 1.2 seconds to go we had possession of the ball but failed to convert a pre-set inbound play despite Ayden Champness ending up on the floor from the attempt to defend his layup. The team worked through the overtime period to maintain possession at the required times and came out 5 point winners with Ayden hitting a three point shot right on the buzzer.

The final game of the day was played against Surfcoasters and after an even battle for 30 minutes of the game, the boys were able to get some good transition baskets midway through the second half and maintain that 14 point margin through to the end of the game. We were always able to maintain a small buffer through the game but really converted when it counted most in the second half.

The weekend was a great learning experience for the boys, they represented our association very well and are fully deserved of their place in the BVC Championships in April.

 

From Alan McKinnon, 14 Girls Head Coach

After a tough couple of weeks playing against 2 of the best sides in Victoria in VJBL we travelled to Colac for the Regional Qualifiers.

Being defeated by the amounts we had been in the previous 2 games, the girls remained very positive. 

We were fixtured to play 3 games. The girls were very nervous and rightfully so.  The sides started coming in and to our girls delight they were all similar height and size to us. 

The previous 2 weeks we had been coming up against girls whose shortest player was the height of our tallest.

First game was against Surfcoasters.   I wasn’t sure how the girls would come out as we played the night before against a very strong Casey team.

To my surprise our girls came out very strong. I could see their confidence was so much higher knowing that they weren’t a tall side.

The girls played very well with some great offence but even more pleasing, some great defence. With rebounding being a standout.

I think the biggest thing that motivated them was the fact they have made a song up for a win after our games and were very keen to belt out a tune.

Final score Bacchus Marsh 44 def Surfcoasters 16.

Second game was against Terang. Another strong performance with a couple of the girls really starting to show what they can do.

The girls started working better as a team. Getting to know each other’s games. It was a similar result to the first game but with other girls also starting to find their confidence.

It was a great all-round performance with more improvement which was pleasing to see.

Final score Bacchus Marsh 49 def Terang 28.

Final game was against Hamilton. Both teams hadn’t lost a game up until this point.  The good thing was by this point both sides were through so we could try a few different things.

This was a reasonably close game although we had some decent leads at times.

With only 1 hour between games, the girls were getting pretty tired by now.  

Our girls came out with the win going through the day undefeated. The best thing for the girls was we got to sing our song 3 times in the one day which really brought them all together at the end.

Final Score Bacchus Marsh 36 def Hamilton 30.

Thank you to all the parents who made this possible and to the BMBA with special mention to Dave Champness.