2010 was a very impressive year on and off court for the Basketball Club. Socially, the Club ran its first Quiz Night to raise money ahead of its 20 Year Anniversary in 2012. The Players’ Player Awards and $1 Beer Night were also very well attended and enjoyable evenings.
On court, all five Saturday teams made the Finals, and 4 teams made the Grand Final, another Club record. As well as the clean sweep of the 3 Intercol games, the big highlight from 2010 was the A’s winning their 3rd straight A Grade Championship.
The A’s rolled through the Regular Season with a 13-3 record to finish minor premiers for the third straight year. In the finals, the A’s lost to Saints A’s by 9 to put the Reds in an elimination game. In the Prelim Final the A’s came out firing, easily winning by 18 against Somerton, Jack Harford playing one of the great games in club history to finish with 27 points. In the Grand Final, the A’s exacted revenge against their old rivals to beat Saints by 9 and take out the A Grade for the third straight year. Jack Harford was voted the Players’ Player for 2010.
The B Grade again played in the A/B Grade and showed great signs early, however with injury and outside commitments they struggled to get a consistent team and finished 7th to qualify for the B Grade Finals. They won the Elimination Final and played in the Prelim to get into the B Grade Final. Down 18 midway through the 2nd half the B’s mounted an amazing comeback and won on the buzzer. Unfortunately the B’s were outclassed by an excellent Modbury side in the Grand Final. Leo Borges was awarded the Players’ Player medal for the B’s.
The C Grade had a wonderful year finishing on top of the ladder for the 3rd straight season with a 13-3 record. They easily won through to the Grand Final in their Qualifying Final but came up against a Dunn A team which was ‘on fire’, losing by 6 despite throwing everything they had into the game. It was a disappointing result after such a great year. Tom Lunn was rewarded with the Players’ Player medal for his stellar season.
The D Grade had an up and down year but showed great spirit to qualify for the finals after playing in two ‘must win’ games at the end of the season and eliminating Saints in the process. In the Elimination Final they came up against a strong Magill A side and went down swinging. The D’s showed great heart all season. Tom Temple
picked up the medal in his debut season for the Club.
The E Grade finished 2nd on the ladder and won through to the GF with an amazing performance in the Qualifying Final against Northgate A. In the Final, the shoe was on the other foot with Northgate playing a great game and the E’s unfortunately losing by 8. Ben Palk was voted Players’ Player after an excellent year.
The three midweek teams competed at Mars with the A Grade and D Grade Thursday teams each playing in a knock out semi-final. The D Grade looked to have scraped through from their semi–final with Tim Wong hitting back to back 3’s in the closing seconds to give them the lead, only to lose on the buzzer. The A Grade side also lost
in the semi-final after a solid year.
The Club would like to thank its sponsors The Hackney Hotel and Deadline Media, as well as the Team Captains, the Committee and weekly scorers.
The Club trains Tuesdays in winter and runs teams on Saturday during the winter season and midweek teams all year round. If you are keen to play or find out more about the Club, all the details can be found on www.paocbc.com.
