TALENTED Bathurst Goldminers trio Pania Tapu, Beau Blattman and Tristan Wood all had memorable individual highlights and upset victories to their name at the recent Australian Country Junior Basketball Cup at Albury.
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Tapu (Under 14s girls NSW Kookaburras), Blattman (Under 14s boys NSW Kookaburras) and Wood (Under 14s NSW Waratahs) took on the best regional players for their age that Australia has to offer.
While the trio ultimately came up short of a gold medal they came up with several match winning performances and even helped their NSW teams pull off fantastic comeback victories.
Under 14s boys Kookaburras coach Iain Wood said the under 14s age group represents an exciting opportunity for juniors to take their game to another level.
"It's the first representative age group for representing NSW in basketball. It's very special for them," he said.
"It was great that the boys were able to have a jersey presentation, where a couple of former coaches and players spoke to the boys and then the under 18s players presented the jerseys to the 14s boys. That was very special.
"The main idea of the cup is development. They got to play against some of the best kids in Australia, and playing at this level will help them take the next step and keep improving from there."
It didn't take long for Blattman to create a magical memory at the cup.
"We started off with a bang against New Zealand. We were down by 28 points at one stage, and were still down 40-20 at half-time, but then we clawed it back to win by 10 points in overtime," Wood said.
"That was the very first timeslot after the opening ceremony and we had hundreds of people watching it because it had gone into overtime.
"Beau was heavily involved in that, through the guard rotation. We had a couple of other close games through the rest of the round robin."
The Kookaburras weren't done producing surprises after that game.
After finishing fourth in their pool they booked a knockout match against the other pool's top placed team, the unbeaten Tasmania Tigers.
"We won that by two points, and that was probably Beau's best game. He scored nine points and inside the last two minutes he scored a three pointer and also a free throw that helped us keep our lead," Wood said.
"Tassie fought back and got it within two points with three seconds to go but they couldn't find the buzzer beater."
After the 55-53 win NSW went on to face their other Tasmania team in the competition, the Devils, who won 54-38.
The Kookaburras went down 67-44 to the Victoria Bushrangers in the bronze medal match.
Tristan Wood's Waratahs team had the opposite experience - starting slow before playing some of their best basketball when it mattered most.
"They squeezed into the quarter-finals as well and ended up winning their last few games to finish fifth," Iain Wood said.
"Tristan started slow but his confidence built. His two best games were against the Victoria Goldminers, where he scored 10 points, and they ended up being the silver medallists.
"In the fifth place play off against New Zealand he ended up scoring 12 points."
Tapu's girls Kookaburras team had a tough tournament but did come away with a pair of wins over the New Zealand Weka team.
The second of those victories featured an equal-tournament best performance for Tapu, with six points.
The side lost a 52-48 thriller against the South Australia Sharks in the last game of the tournament.
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