EARLIER in the month, Penshurst’s St Joseph’s Primary School basketball team ventured off on a road trip to Dandenong Basketball Stadium to represent our diocese in the Future Allstars Hooptime State Finals.

The students had an epic day, starting proceedings by defeating Tintern Turkeys in the opening game and continued their positive form, defeating Gippsland Grizzlies by 15 points in game two.

The third game was against St Andrew’s Sparks, who were too good for St Joseph, in a classic match losing by two points.

The team soon bounced back with a hard-fought win against Yarraville Vikings in the next round to get back on the winners list.

Next up was a top of the table clash against Kunyung Koalas and both teams were simply outstanding in a thrilling match that went down to the wire, with the Koalas winning with five seconds left on the clock.

The Penshurst team then had an outstanding win in its first final and it was time to play off for a spot in the quarter finals.

The students were unbelievable and never gave up, eventually going down by two points in a nail-biting encounter.

The students showed amazing collaboration, resilience and grit to win four out of seven games to finish ninth out of 750 teams.

St Joseph’s teacher, Brendan Clifford said the achievement would go down as one of the proudest moments in the school's history and thanked all the families for making it happen.