We arrived at the sports centre in our new green and white basketball kit, Dave Roper introduced Ali as the scorer and Taylor as the other referee.  We then had to name ourselves, we called ourselves the St. Philip’s Flyers.  Newbridge A were The Killers, Newbridge B were The Yankees, St. Stephen’s were St. Stephen’s and St. Michael’s were the Bulldogs.

The matches then began.  Mr. Walshe helped us pick teams. 

I wasn’t starting the first match.  When I came on the team had already scored about four baskets each.  I was an attacking defensive player, I got forward and helped set up the 5th basket.  I ran back into my defensive position ready to try and block a shot.  I went right up close to the other player and jumped.  I did block it but another player on their team got the ball and scored their fifth basket.  We had to get back ahead of them, but soon after they scored again, putting them 12-10 up.  Taylor was counting down the 10 seconds.  I was passed the ball and dribbled it down the left wing, 4 seconds left.  I passed it into the middle aiming for Sam but it didn’t get there, Nick caught the ball and shot.  Was it going in?  Wasn’t it?  It was!  We had scored with one second left to spare, making it 12-12.  We were relieved and happy that we hadn’t lost the first match. 

Our next match was against Newbridge killers, we were all exhausted but still gave it our best.  I started this match.  Two minutes after Liam Burcombe and Nick came on Liam passed the ball up the field towards people under the net, but wait!  It’s going in, I thought to myself and it did, getting us a 3 pointer.  There was a lots of clapping and cheering by us and our parents.  That was the highlight of the game, the final score was 11-2 to us.  We all congratulated Liam after.

Our next match was Newbridge Yankees.  I didn’t start this one.  I was very confident that we were going to beat them and we did.  I came on scored one and set up one.  The final score was 8-6 to us, yes! We were all very happy.  We had won two matches and drawn one. 

Our final match was against St. Michael’s Bulldogs.  They looked quite tough but that didn’t worry us!  We totally annihilated them!  The referee was giving them everything to them but we still thrashed them 14-2!  We’d won our last match. 

We were certain we’d come third, second or first. Taylor called us in and announced the rankings.  He went through to second place and that wasn’t us.  We’d come first!!!  He announced us as first place.  When he had finished talking we all jumped up and ran around screaming and shouting.