Hills alive with the sounds of celebration

By Casey Neill and Marc McGowan
HILLS primary schools have dominated a Victorian basketball competition, with Tecoma and Gembrook teams taking out Hoop Time divisional grand finals last week.
Tecoma defeated Christian College Geelong at Melbourne’s Hisense Arena last Saturday, 14 points to 10, to claim the All Star League title.
“It was a tough contest. It was tight to the end,” PE teacher Nicole Cumming said.
The eight Grade 6 boys made it through the tournament undefeated and boasted an average winning margin of 20 points. They played more than 20 schools in their journey to the grand final.
“They’re a really nice bunch of kids and they’ve trained really hard,” Ms Cumming said.
The win came without team captain Luke and key player Marek, who were representing Victoria in the state primary school competition.
“We tried really hard,” said school sports captain and team member Jarrod.
Top scorer Liam (6 points) was nervous heading into the game. “It was pretty nerve-racking heading into it but once we got out there, it was OK,” he said.
Gembrook Primary School was celebrating after nine of its Grade 5 and 6 students combined to win the Hoop Time Future Stars League last Thursday. The state-wide competition attracted 677 schools.
Gembrook’s basketballers battled their way through two stages to reach the state final at Dandenong Basketball Stadium undefeated. Gembrook beat Harkaway Primary School by six points in the final to top its previous best placing, third in 2005.
The school had finished 15th and 16th, respectively, over the previous two years.
Sue Cracknell has coached Gembrook for four years and was delighted with the success.
“We were over the moon coming third a few years ago, let alone winning it this year,” she said. “To take it out was an amazing effort.”
One of the students, Jesse, moved to Tasmania before the state final, but the school will send him a medallion to recognise his efforts.
Ms Cracknell, whose son Robert was in the team, and manager Janice Diston organised training at lunch time and after school for the students during the year.
They were delighted to knock off bigger schools from across Victoria. “It’s great for these little schools to get up and win it and it just goes to show the talent they have,” Ms Cracknell said.
Hoop Time is a series of one-day round-robin tournaments for primary-school teams. There are almost 30,000 Victorian students involved across three competition levels.