Highlights of the Week 

3/4 Bushy Park Wetlands Explore

Yesterday 3/4EW spend a couple of hours exploring the Bushy Park Wetlands at the end of Highbury Road...

Exciting Basketball Grand Finals

Well done to Tom Greene, Ethan Pavlou, Harry Mitchell, Charlie Wolf, Guiseppe Nardo, and Julian Iezzi on their exciting grand final basketball wins.

Here are some of their reflections..

 My First Basketball Grand Final

It was Friday night and I was so excited for our basketball grand final the next day. But then my mum called my name and said Bailey was sick and couldn't play. I started to get nervous, then she told me Giuseppe and Ollie also couldn't play. I was devastated! I thought there was no way we could win now because we only had four players.   

The next morning I got dressed into my basketball team’s clothes and grabbed my basketball. I went outside to practice my basketball skills like shooting and dribbling. I felt very nervous the whole car ride to the stadium.   

When we finally got there, I saw my pa and aunty and my friends Nikitas and Julius. Even Mr Buttigieg came to watch us play. I saw my coach trying to find us some spare players because we were short three players and there would be one person open the whole game and no one on the bench.  My coach started to move back towards us and said, “We will be one player short on court so man up and do a lot of defense.” While we were warming up, I heard Julius talking to his brothers Patrice and Daniel. They were telling him to play so we weren't short on players anymore. At first he said no because he was worried that he would make us lose but eventually they convinced him to play. 

The coach asked if Julius could play and the other coach said yes because he wanted a fair match.  He was given his uniform and put it on just as everyone was moving to the middle of the court for the jump ball.  The umpire grabbed the ball and threw it in the air, Game On! The whole game was neck and neck, they had two spare players on the bench and we had to stay on the court for the whole game. The crowd was yelling and cheering. We all had to play our best and I especially wanted to win my first basketball grand final.  

By half time the scores were so close, we were just up. When the final buzzer went, we were so relieved. We couldn’t believe we pulled it off and won the grand final. The final score was 31-30. It was my best game of the season, I scored eleven points. After the game we shook hands with everyone on both teams. Then they presented us with our medals and we went outside for our team photos. We got into our positions and the camera flashed as the photos were taken. Then I walked to my car and was so happy that I had won my first basketball grand final.

My Grand Final Basketball Story 

 Hi my name is Charlie. On the weekend of the first school  holidays I had a basketball game and that game was our grand final. I was super excited the night before the game, but it turned out that our best player Bailey was feeling under the weather. So I was like alright, that's ok we still got a bunch of other boys, but then my mum got a notification from the WhatsApp basketball group chat that Guiseppe who is one of our best Shooters and Ollie our best rebounder were unwell. That made me really sad that we got so far, we tried so hard and now we only had four players. We were probably going to lose. I started to cry, but I said to myself at least we will get a red medal. I woke up the next day. It hits me, I’m so excited to be playing in the grand final on the number one show court. I was so jumpy and excited I was telling myself  that if we're even going to have a chance  I needed to run all game. We were all bouncing balls getting warmed up and stuff but then out of nowhere Julius comes in and he's like I'm going to play guys. That gave us confidence that we can now be competitive. I was so nervous and excited. Did we actually have a chance of winning today? Turns out we did so the only thing we could do now is try our hardest and see if we can pull off a courageous win. I got to the center of the Court ready to jump and smack that ball as hard as I could and as soon as that first whistle was blown itwas all adrenaline from there. The first whistle blows, I jump and smack the ball straight to Ethan. Ethan scores, we were up by two I was so pumped but their star player number 23 wasn't having any of it. He was scoring a lot of points and giving off assists. I said to myself I must concentrate and defend all to stop the scoring. I played my best game ever. I was defending everything. Ethan was also playing his best game; he was just shooting like mad. Making everything. Harry and Julius scored important points too. It just keeps going up and down the court. The ball just goes Bing Bang Boom! I was so excited I couldn't believe that we actually had a chance. Carter kept scoring, everyone kept scoring, except for me but that's besides the point. We keep going, we're going as hard as we can. We just kept on persisting. I'm taking the ball off the other team, passing it down to Ethan and his scoring is unbelievable. He has nerves of steel. Half way through the last half, Julius scores a basket that puts us ten points clear. This is crazy, are we going to win the unwinnable game. The other team had other ideas and got back to within one point with two minutes to go. We were so determined to win and defended with all our might. We were gonna keep on running to that final buzzer. We held onto a one point victory. I saw my  family and friends there supporting us jumping up and down going crazy. I can’t believe it, we won the grand final. My heart soared. WE WON! OH my god we won!I was dancing, jumping, all my friends came on the court, we were laughing and screaming. We were so happy.  And that's the end of my basketball story.

My Grand Final basketball story

This is the story about my friends and I in the Grand Final in basketball playing for the Eastern Bulls. The night before grand final I was getting myself all pumped up for the game and I was also on a call with my friends. We were chatting about the game when we heard news that one of our best players Bailey had come down with covid. Even though he was out we were still feeling confident, but then more bad news came in! Ollie was caught in covid protocols as well. I then started to feel really nervous because we had no one on the bench for tomorrow's big game. I woke up the next morning and when I was putting on my uniform I heard the worst news. Giuseppe had just caught COVID too!  That meant the game would be played 4 v 5. At that moment, I thought we should just try our best. We got to the courts and we were so nervous, but we had some good news. One of our close friends, Julius, came to watch and offered to play to help us out. The opposition coach was really nice because he allowed Julius to fill in when he could have easily said no. We were all happy that Julius could play, we gave him a uniform and we were ready to play. As soon as the ref threw the ball up the adrenaline rushed to me and it all went quiet. I grabbed the ball and ran down the court as fast as I could. I passed to Ethan and he scored! We were off to a great start. Both teams tried their hearts out and at the end, we held on to win by one point. We were exhausted but so happy, jumping around like lunatics. I heard the roar from the stands, our supporters were cheering loudly. They were so proud of our efforts. Charlie played a great defensive game, Ethan and Carter scored lots of points, Julius scored a vital basket that put us in front and I played an important point guard game. It was a great day.

My  Insane Experience With The Eastern Bulls

I was looking forward to watching my friends play basketball in the grand final. My friends included Ethan, Harry, Giuseppe, Charlie and Ollie. I took my seat, but then I noticed that Ollie and Giuseppe weren’t there practicing before the game. Suddenly I was approached by my brothers in a huff, they were telling me that I had to play in this grand final because there were only 4 players and they needed someone to fill in. I was shaking my head, I didn’t want to play because I had never played before. My brothers pressured me to play and I finally found some courage to go out there and play. I quickly changed into an Eastern Bulls uniform. The game was about to start and I was so nervous that I was shivering. 

It took me the first half to get myself into the game. After the break the second half started. About 5 minutes into the second half my team took a shot, the ball was heading towards me. I grabbed the ball and I did a quick layup and luckily the ball went straight into the hoop. I couldn’t believe that I actually scored! I was thrilled! I looked at the scoreboard, around 10 minutes had now passed and there was 3 minutes left. My team was dribbling the ball down the court. They ran to the hoop and shot the ball and it went straight in. Scores are now 28 to 31. The opposition ran quickly and they scored another 2 points. It was a one point difference!!! This was really nerve wracking!! The crowd was cheering us on and now there was 8 seconds left. My team tried to hold the ball for the 8 seconds until the buzzer went off. 

We WON!! We were going INSANE!  Then we shook the other teams hands and we were presented with our medals. I was filled with happiness. I couldn’t believe it, it was my first game ever and I walked away with a medal. This was my insane experience with the Eastern Bulls. 

My Basketball Grand Final

It was Saturday morning at 8am. We were up against the Kangers. At the beginning of the match we were down18 - 9 and it wasn't looking good. But then we scored to even up the game. It was back and forth until our attackers stepped up and scored a few and we got control of the game. When the final siren went w were up by 6 points. We had won! The parents were dancing in the stands. I was exhausted but happy!