It appears the popularity of basketball is still strong in our school, with St Mary’s entering 7 teams in the 2018 CPS Basketball Challenge.

In the junior division (yrs 3 & 4) the school entered 1 girls team and 3 boys teams.  In the senior division (yrs 5 & 6) 1 girls team and 2 boys teams were entered.

In preparation for the event 6 weeks were dedicated to training and with monetary assistance from the P&F, we were able to train in the newly refurbished West Wyalong Stadium.

When October 26 finally rolled around the St Mary’s teams were well rehearsed, outfitted and ready for the competition to begin.  Each team played three games on the Saturday and the results from these games would seed the teams for Sunday’s knockout component of the competition.

Both St Mary’s Senior boys teams won 2 of their three games, the Senior girls battled hard but didn’t quite record a win as did the Junior boys Blue and Gold teams.  The Junior Boys Red performed extremely well winning all three games and the Junior girls team recorded 2 wins for the day.  The teams were placed in the following divisions:

• Senior Boys Green – Division 3
• Senior Boys Black – Division 4
• Senior Girls Pink – Division 5
• Junior Boys Blue – Division 5
• Junior Boys Gold – Division 5
• Junior Boys Red – Division 1
• Junior Girls Purple – Division 2

During Saturday night’s coaches, managers and parents debrief, all were reasonably happy with their teams seeding and buoyant with Sunday’s prospects.  Sunday’s first round saw closely contested encounters, but unfortunately most of our St Mary’s teams came close but couldn’t quite record the win.

The two teams that did get through the first round were our Junior Boys Red and Junior Girls Purple.  The Girls played flawless basketball in the opening game winning comfortably.  The second game was a different story.  Locked 9-9 at half time, the girls strengthened their defence and put enough points on the board to record the win.  Although the final wasn’t their biggest winning margin, it was certainly their most impressive performance of the tournament not allowing the opposition a single basket in the game.  A huge congratulations goes to our Junior Girls team who were crowned division 2 champions.

St Mary’s Junior Boy’s Red also had a very comfortable win in their first game on Sunday.  The win set up a much-anticipated encounter with the competition heavy weights Albury in the semi-finals.  The game was an epic battle with both teams scoring frequent baskets while also playing staunch defence.  Albury had a small advantage at the break, however our Junior Boys came out with intent in the second half after an inspiring half time speech by Coach Kelly.  The boys quickly got the game back on equal terms and from there the teams traded blows right to the final siren.  It was Albury who happened to have a 2 point lead when the bell sounded which meant our boys finished 3^rd overall in the Junior Boys section of the competition.  This is an outstanding result considering there were 38 teams entered in the competition.  Well done boys and Coach Kelly.

A huge thank you must go to out coaches and managers who donated their time to train and prepare our teams for the event.  A special thank you to Pete Kelly who generously took on the role as coach of the Junior Boys Red side.