Date: Tue, Feb 16, 2010

U/14’s Fight till the End

The Ballarat Representative Squad’s Under 14 Boys team were unable to qualify for the 2010 VJBL Junior Championship Division. After eight rounds of gruelling grading matches and four months of vigorous training, the team was unable to beat their country based rivals Corio Bay on Friday night.

Ballarat came out firing with Matt Geary leading the way. After producing a terrific performance against some strong opposition the week before, Ballarat were again able to lead the game early in all areas including rebounding, steals and points. Some strong team defence followed by outstanding offensive plays saw Ballarat up by six points with only a minute to go.

As the clock wound down Corio Bay were able to produce two long range three point baskets and a lay-up to put Ballarat down by two points. A time-out from Coach Travis Hewish gave Ballarat time to settle their nerves with only 15 seconds left on the clock. Corio then gave Ballarat a life line by sending Matt Geary to the line to shoot two free-throws. To add to his already outstanding performance, Geary was able to make both shots and send the game into over-time.

Unfortunately the fairytale was not meant to be for Ballarat as Corio took the lead by six points in the middle of the over-time period. Ballarat’s foul shooting was also their downfall; only able to make three out of thirteen in the extra period. After a hard fought 40 minutes of playing time Ballarat went down 49 – 50. Matt Geary finished the game with 22 points and 15 rebounds.

This now puts Ballarat in the Victorian Junior League 1 which Coach Hewish is confident they will perform well in. He said that “despite the final result the boys played a fantastic game none the less. We’ll now go away and work at performing well in Division 1”.

In the other qualifying match of the week the Under 16 boys were able to produce a nine point win over Keilor (3). This win earns the team another game next week and a chance to qualify for the Division 3 competition. Assistant Coach Chris Thornton said “the boys really lifted tonight and I think the end result is indicative of this”.

The boys now need to win one more match to qualify for Victorian Junior League 3.