Over the Australia Day weekend the under 14 gold team competed in the Eltham-Dandenong Australia Day Weekend Tournament.

After arriving on Friday the boys played Keilor in their first game. Despite some good patches of play Keilor took the game 41 to 40. The next morning we fronted Hawthorne, a club with 2 teams in the division 1 competition. With several players 6 ft and athletic, our team was challenged both with physicality and the unrelenting desire of their opponents to dominate the possession game. After a scoreline fixed at 6 to 25 the Capitals rallied to win the last 10 minutes of play by 14 to 9 - clear evidence that the lessons of playing in the Victorian league were beginning to be learnt.

That afternoon we fronted host association Eltham who retained 3 key players from their Nationals 2012 third placed team. Well, Eltham set the bar at a height that the boys had not seen previously. The standout of the match was Lachlan Marchant who pulled 9 big rebounds and scored 8 tough points for our much undersized team.

The final day of the tournament was testament to the value of exposing our young players to this style of competition in the state that is described as the hub of Basketball Australia. The Caps team hit the floor running. Their intensity mirrored their effort and determination and at half time the Capitals found themselves 25 all with Diamond Valley who the previous day defeated Eltham by 10. Unfortunately, despite valiant efforts on the boards (Jang with 9 boards and Marchant with 5 boards) and good perimeter shooting, Capitals went down by 6 points.

The final game was against Werribee and it really was a case of saving the best to last. The Capitals team dug deep to establish an 8 point lead, which they held on to tenaciously until the end with the boys showing that much had been learnt from the whole tournament.
The Capitals under 14 boys certainly CAPITIALIZED on the wonderful opportunity their parents provided them!! No one left the tournament disappointed ....that the experience was immensely valuable. Off the court the boys had a lot of fun!

A big thank you to all the parents who had faith in the value of the tournament for our boys and organized family holidays around it. Special thanks to Jay and Jacob for joining our team at short notice and being such great team members!! To Alistair, Christian, Danen, Jay, Jesse, Jacob, Lachlan, Sean and Will well done. You represented your associations proudly!!!!  Go Basketball in Queensland!!!!