Please see below a recount from our Year 5/6 girls who won their grand final playing basketball for Marwal Magic this week. It is the 3rd time our girls have been in a grand final and their first win! They also beat a Boroondara team who had been undefeated all season...by 1 point...with 1 second to go!!

BASKETBALL GRANDFINAL

FIRST HALF

(by Kiara, Heidi and Samara)

We walked in the stadium a bit nervous and excited to verse one of our biggest rivals. The last time we versed them they won easily so they might've thought this was an easy win.

Before the start of the game we were practicing shooting hoops and lay ups.

The buzzer went to begin and coach Nick said encouraging words to motivate us,

“3,2,1 magic”

As we started to walk on the court we all had a nervous feeling. *Whistle* Samara jumped up, hitting the ball to Valentina.

As we were running we heard heavy panting and screams from the people on the side benches.

Mid game Heidi grabbed the ball, ran it up the whole court and got in a marvellous goal tying with the other team.

It had now been a couple of minutes and we were desperate to get another goal to take the lead. Valentina shot at the end of the key and GOAL! Unfortunately for us the opposition scored two more goals and the scores were 10-12, we tried everything but their defence was amazing and we couldn't manage to score any other goals nor the opposition score again in the first half.

SECOND HALF

(By Maddy K, Maddie L and Valentina)

After the encouraging words our coach gave us, such as ‘I believe in you, you've got this’. The other team started with the ball, they took a shot and missed. So Maddy K got the rebound and started sprinting down the count, until she got fouled and got 2 free shots. The other team had reached nine fouls, so if they fouled us again we would just go to the free throw line. The score was now 11-12 and we were down one point. Our coach called a time out and said to us, you can win this, you are only down one goal . I need you to focus for ten minutes. Can you do that? We all screamed “YESS”! and we ran onto the court. Pressure was building up and the score was close. We had to get a point. We got the ball and passed it to Samara and… GOAL!!!!!! The score was now even. But the game was tight and the other team got another point. 12-14. Everyone was distraught and our hope was getting smaller and smaller, but we never gave up. Then we pushed even harder than we were before. Maddie L ran up the court and passed to Samara and she got fouled and got another point! It was now 14 all, the other team got another goal with 10 seconds to go. It was now 16-15. Then all of a sudden Valentina got the rebound and passed to Samara and she lost the ball but luckily it was our ball at our baseline, with only 5 seconds left Maddy K got the ball and shot but sadly missed, then Maddie L got the rebound with only 1 second left and shot it while the buzzer went off, and we WON !!!!!!! We were all laughing and crying at the same time. We were so happy that we finally won our first grand final for Marwal Magic.

Intensive Swimming Lessons