BULLEEN Boomers, Dandenong Rangers and Eltham Wildcats have enjoyed National Junior Classic titles on home soil, while Sturt Sabres headed back to South Australia with the Under-18 Boys flag. We take a look a the winners in each of the Under-18 and Under-16 grades.<\/p>\n
Under-18 Girls:<\/strong><\/p>\n Bullen Boomers 76 defeated Forestville Eagles 74<\/strong><\/p>\n A mammoth effort from Most Valuable Player (MVP) Casey Valenti-Paea<\/strong> helped Bulleen Boomers across the line in a two-point thriller over Forestville. The visitors led in the first half, but a second half surge from the Boomers saw them race back into contention. Ably assisted by Maeve Chaplin<\/strong> (16 points), Ally Keating<\/strong> (13) and Erin Riley<\/strong> (eight), it was fitting that Valenti-Paea would deliver the final blow to the Eagles, delivering a lay-up in the dying seconds to ensure a narrow victory. The victory came after wins over Sturt Sabres (54-48), Bendigo Braves (66-59) and Manly Warringah (70-44) in Group D, before finals wins over Southern Peninsula Sharks (76-59) and Dandenong Rangers (66-48) in the lead-up to the decider.<\/p>\n Bulleen Coach Sam Thornton said:<\/strong> “\u201cWe knew that we were playing a classy club \u2013 they\u2019ve been in the last four Under-18 Classic finals and have won three of them,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cThe point I made to our group beforehand is that we have to have the utmost respect for the way they play. They come over here really well prepared \u2013 but we knew it was going to be tough.\u201cThe girls had played a tough game yesterday against Dandenong, we had a different game plan against Dandenong. \u201cI\u2019m just proud of our girls that they stuck to the game plan \u2013 it\u2019s a very proud moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Under-18 Boys:<\/p>\n Sturt Sabres 64 defeated Melbourne Tigers 62<\/strong><\/p>\n A high-scoring thriller treated spectators in the Under-18 Boys decider with South Australian side, Sturt getting up over Melbourne Tigers by just two points. Sturt’s Joel Dyer<\/strong> was named MVP after sinking a remarkable seven three-point attempts on his way to 25 points, teaming up well with teammates Keanu Rasmussen<\/strong> (13) and Seb Griffin<\/strong> (10). Josh Giddey<\/strong> (30 points) was the star for Melbourne in defeat, while Patrick Twigg<\/strong> (16) was also strong. Sturt overcame a Group D loss to Norths Bears to post wins over Melbourne and Dandenong Rangers, then made it through the finals with victories over Diamond Valley Eagles and Nunawading Spectres before eventually making it two wins over the Tigers for the tournament.<\/p>\n Sturt player Seb Griffin<\/strong> said: \u201cWe pulled it out in the end,\u201d Griffin said. \u201c(Sturt talked about) just to keep doing what we were doing \u2013 we had a tough loss Saturday night but we pulled it out yesterday and we kept going on that. \u201cWe get a challenge every game \u2013 Victorian teams play hard ball for 40 minutes every game and we don\u2019t get that a lot in SA (South Australia), but it\u2019s good to come out as champions. \u201cThey (Melbourne) got us in under-14s and we know they\u2019re going to bring the challenge and it\u2019s good to bring it out in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Under-16 Girls:<\/p>\n Dandenong Rangers 55 defeated Nunawading Spectres 42<\/strong><\/p>\n Dandenong Rangers’ Under-16 Girls have saluted in a strong performance over fellow Victorian powerhouse, Nunawading Spectres. Dallas Loughridge<\/strong> sank 11 points and was rewarded with the MVP award, while Myah Healey<\/strong> (15) and Nyadiew Puoch<\/strong> (13) were equally as impressive for the Rangers. The Spectres had plenty to smile about despite the defeat with Olivia Morris<\/strong> (14 points), Evie Curtis<\/strong> (12) and Yoshika Cook<\/strong> (10) all putting in solid performances. Dandenong had defeated Nunawading by 10 points earlier in the tournament through the group stage, as well as Southern Tigers and Sydney Comets. On the way to the decider, the Rangers also knocked off Forestville Eagles and Keilor Thunder.<\/p>\n Dandenong Coach Lloyd Klaman said: “\u201cEverything starts and stops with our defence \u2013 whether we\u2019re playing man or zone \u2013 we get a lot of offence off our live ball turn overs. \u201cWhen we get a run on we can score in bunches and that\u2019s what tends to happen \u2013 we weren\u2019t shooting the ball real well, we finally hit a three late in the game, we didn\u2019t hit a lot of threes but it worked out well in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Under-16 Boys:<\/p>\n Eltham Wildcats 64 defeated Bulleen Boomers 62<\/strong><\/p>\n The Wildcats enjoyed a narrow two-point win over fellow Victorian side, Bulleen Boomers in a 64-62 thriller. Kristian Ferronato<\/strong> sank 14 points and was named MVP for the game, while Zahn Agosta<\/strong> (18) and Brad Moorey<\/strong> (15) were also busy for the Wildcats. Joel Foxwell<\/strong> (16 points) and Daniel Johnston<\/strong> (15) were the best for Bulleen in the tight loss. Eltham’s title came after wins over teams in three states. They defeated Central District, Keilor Thunder and Sydney Comets in the group stage, before overcoming Maffra and Sturt Sabres in the finals on the lead-up to the victory over the Boomers.<\/p>\n Eltham Coach Chris Cameron said:<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s been a really hard weekend for us, trying to take it one game at a time and I\u2019m immensely proud of them,\u201d Cameron said. \u201cThey\u2019ve done everything I\u2019ve asked and basketball is a great game but it goes both ways \u2013 there are always going to make runs and I thought we were really good at negating that \u201cWe knew Bulleen beforehand, we played them and they are amazing. “We knew we\u2019d have to be on it so I guess we talked about runs and tempo of the game and time and place. \u201cI thought we did a good job of knowing when to shoot it, when to hold it and how to play some D. \u201cSeeing them evolve over the weekend it makes you really proud.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BULLEEN Boomers, Dandenong Rangers and Eltham Wildcats have enjoyed National Junior Classic titles on home soil, while Sturt Sabres headed back to South Australia with the Under-18 Boys flag. We take a look a the winners in each of the Under-18 and Under-16 grades. Under-18 Girls: Bullen Boomers 76 defeated Forestville Eagles 74 A mammoth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":5887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[1681,1687,548,493,990,454,1686,1684,989,432,1683,475,1682,498,497,1028,430,1685,1570,476],"class_list":["post-5886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vjbl-boys","category-vjbl-girls","tag-ally-keating","tag-brad-moorey","tag-casey-valenti-paea","tag-dallas-loughridge","tag-daniel-johnston","tag-erin-riley","tag-evie-curtis","tag-joel-dyer","tag-joel-foxwell","tag-josh-giddey","tag-keanu-rasmussen","tag-kristian-ferronato","tag-maeve-chaplin","tag-myah-healey","tag-nyadiew-puoch","tag-olivia-morris","tag-patrick-twigg","tag-seb-griffin","tag-yoshika-cook","tag-zahn-agosta"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}