Wednesday, 17th June, 2009

It was a productive weekend for the WheelKings juniors and development players at the annual Queensland Classic with the B grade team winning their division and the NSW Juniors, featuring 3 WheelKings rookies, coming 4th in the very strong A grade.

The WheelKings released CJ Grogan, Keegan Oh-Chee and Josh Meoli to play with the NSW Juniors rather than stay home for the NWBL game against the Sydney Razorbacks. The reasoning was that the youngsters would get to play big minutes in up to 6 games over 3 days against strong competition. That sort of experience is invaluable for our NWBL rookies. WheelKings team manager Louis Richards also played on the junior team.

The following story of the Juniors' progress through the tournament is adapted from a report by CJ Grogan. Thanks to CJ for the report and also providing the photos.

The NSW team got off to a rough start  when several players had to rush straight to the game from the airport after their flight from Sydney arrived late.  They got to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre with luggage in tow and suited up for the opening match against eventual Division One grand finalists, the Dream Team. The Juniors put up a strong fight but lost by 11 points as they couldn’t make up for their unsurprising slow start.

Saturday was much more productive with NSW winning their first match of the day 59-16 against North Queensland. The second match turned out to be the game of the day against the 2008 reigning champions Icemen. It was the dying seconds of the game and scores were tied 31 apiece when NSW’s Michael Auprince passed the ball up court to CJ Grogan for the fastbreak lay-up. CJ was fouled as he made the shot and went to the line for the 3-point play. He hit the free throw to give NSW a 34-31 buffer. The Icemen called a timeout with 9 seconds on the clock and then strangely ran a play where they scored a 2-pointer inside the key, leaving them 1 point short of a draw as time expired. NSW celebrated as the Icemen reflected on their brain fade.

The Juniors’ euphoria was short-lived as they faced the talented Rockwheelers in their third match of the day. NSW had knocked the Rockwheelers out of last year’s finals and the northern Queenslanders were definitely after revenge. The Juniors struggled with the physical play lost 43-18 in a disappointing performance.

The fourth (yes, fourth!) game on the Saturday was against Suncoast Spinners who weren’t prepared for the excellent team play of the Juniors. NSW had regained its focus and the Spinners had no answers as they went down 59-18.

With a 3-2 record, the NSW Juniors would go into the next day’s finals in 2^nd place. However, there was fun to be had before the big day as the Classic organisers put on an extravagant Saturday night dinner function for all the teams.

Sunday arrived and the Juniors were listed to play the Icemen in the 2^nd v 3^rd semi-final. In another tight game reminiscent of yesterday’s clash, the Icemen turned the tables with a narrow 44-40 victory. The Icemen went on to lose 48-22 to the Dream Team in the grand final.

Following the grand final, the NSW Juniors played the QLD Juniors in an exhibition game. The Queensland team was allowed two 20 year old former juniors to make them more competitive but NSW still went on to win 48-8.

Overall, it was a solid tournament for the Juniors with 4 very good wins and 3 losses. Congratulations to all the team members – CJ Grogan, Keegan Oh-Chee, Josh Meoli, Michael Auprince, Jess Pellow, Patrick Reid, Josh Horner, David Moreira, Louis Richards, coach Paul Auprince and manager Margaret Bennett.