Our Under 14 Boys Rep team started their season at Dandenong Basketball Association last week. This year, the boys are setting themselves the challenge of competing in the Association’s incredibly strong A-grade competition, with ambitions to step up to their even stronger Premier competition the season after.
The boys have had some preparation, with most of them playing out of their age group over the past two seasons and participating in rep tournaments at the Eltham Dandeong and SEJBT tournaments, where they acquitted themselves very well. Despite this, the boys entered the game with a considerable dose of nervous energy, as it was the first time they had competed in such a strong division.
Despite this, the boys started well and held their own early. Shooting Forward Zach Chester, in particular, got off to a good start, leading the team with some strong moves to the basket. Ten minutes into the first half, and the boys were well and truly holding their own, trailing 10-12, but in the next ten minutes, the boys fell away to let their Vales opponents go on a 13-4 run to trail 16-25 at halftime.
It was obvious the occasion was getting to the boys as they were nowhere near their best. After half time, we found our mojo and came storming back, and with nine minutes to go had dominated play to trail 25-27.
At this point, we dared to think of a debut win, but just as we did, we now got ahead of ourselves, made some errors, forced plays, and before we knew it, we were down double figures with just minutes left. Sadly, we gave up three easy baskets in the last minute, trying too hard to get the margin back, and the end result, a 25-42 loss, didn’t reflect how well our boys had competed.
Despite the loss, the game gave our boys a lot of confidence, as we know we were nowhere near our best, and this was one of the better teams in the competition, and with ten minutes to go, we were confident of a win. As it’s grading, there is no damage done, and we have another four grading games now to find our feet, so we are confident of what we can do.
Zach Chester was a standout in this game with 17 points, but the opposition clued onto his impact by double-teaming him throughout the last ten minutes of the match. Our next highest scorer was Lucas Anderson with 4 points, which relects the uneveness of our effort.
We only had two other scorers in Bill Pham and Jack Jamieson, both scoring two points. If we want to win games at this level, we will need more contributors on the offensive end than that.
The boys’ defence was a highlight, with all the boys contributing strongly in that area. A special mention for youngster Issac McDonald, who, in his debut game, played some solid basketball and showed what an asset he will be to the team going forward into the season.
The good news is we have the chance to rectify that as we take the court against Kingston Academy this week, where hopefull with a game under their belts, the boys can relax more and play close to their best basketball.
