THE GRAND Final of the Victorian Junior Basketball League (VJBL) Under-18 Boys VC Championship has arrived, with the Sunbury Jets set to take on the Knox Raiders for the title of best team in the state for the 2025 season.

The two teams are slated to lock horns in the decider at State Basketball Centre on Saturday night, having both won their respective preliminary final matchups. The Jets were 22 points too good for the Eltham Wildcats, while the Raiders bounced back from their loss in the first week of finals to defeat the Kilsyth Cobras by four points.

It is a top-four clash between two of the best sides in the VJBL for 2025, as the minor champions in Knox look to cap off a strong campaign, while the Jets will be looking to come from third place to take out the ultimate prize.

The last time these two times locked horns was back in Round 3 of the VC Championship portion of the fixture, and it was the Raiders who got the job done by 11 points at Boardman Sports Stadium. In that clash, the Raiders won the first three quarters, with Jarvis Neal dropping 23 points in the victory.

Saturday’s clash is shaping as a massive matchup, and although Knox did go through all nine rounds of the home and away fixture unbeaten, it was bested in the first week of finals, which will certainly give the Jets some level of hope heading into the big dance.

There are going to be key players on both sides that will shape the result of the clash, but two in particular loom as vital to the final leg of the championship race – those being Knox’s Achilles Gulic and Sunbury’s Alex Gray.

Gulic was the man of the moment for the Raiders in their preliminary final win over the Cobras on Friday night, proving the match-winner with one of the biggest moments of the season. With Knox holding a two-point buffer and its season on the line, Gulic knocked down the sealing bucket with a turnaround jumpshot from midrange to put his side into the Grand Final and keep the Raiders in the hunt for the championship.

Although Neal is obviously going to be one of the key offensive players win or lose, Gulic is the wildcard that could be the difference in getting Knox to a winning score. He has scored 10+ points in eight of his 12 outings since the regrading, and if he can reach the offensive production he delivered against Geelong United where he dropped 21 points, the Raiders could just be lifting the trophy on Saturday night.

For the Jets, Gray has proven to be the biggest point of difference on the scoring front, and showed exactly why in the wins over the past two weeks. Since joining the VC Championship division and facing the best sides in the state, he has averaged 14.8 points per game, and has emerged as a genuine number-one scoring option for Sunbury, and is one of their most reliable contributors on the offensive side of the ball.

Gray has dropped 19 points in his most recent two outings in the semi and preliminary finals, leading Sunbury to victory in both matches. He has been the spark on the scoring side of things that gets his team rolling, driving inside the paint and finishing at the cup despite the defence’s best efforts, and if he can become a prominent performer in the paint against the Raiders, it will go a long way towards the Jets’ championship aspirations.

It will likely be the battle that shapes Saturday’s decider, given both players have match-winning ability. Expect the pair to find a lot of the ball with the championship on the line and their respective offensive weapons.