AS mentioned in an article in The Spectator in December, St Mary’s Primary School impressed at last month’s Hooptime outing in Dandenong.

The Year 3-4 All Star girls basketball team competed in the state final of the Hooptime basketball competition, with Alani Rook, Johannah Winnell, Nina Roll, Hana Churchill, Meki Churchill and Charlie Moyle making up one of more than 400 teams competing in the various stages of Hooptime.

The squad was coached by Daniel Winnell, with the early games setting the team up for success.

Eltham’s Holy Trinity burst out of the blocks in the girls’ first game, shooting superbly and hanging on to narrowly defeat the St Mary's team by two points, 14-12.

The girls had to regroup and a match against The Patch from the Dandenong Ranges managed to get the team revved up again and back on track with a convincing 36-8 victory, boosting confidence within the group.

The remaining pool games saw victories against Lysterfield with an 18-7 result and also defeated Anderson Creek, 14-7.

With pool games out of the way, St Mary's was second in its pool and faced an elimination final against Regency Park Primary.

Defence was the key to the girls’ success in the contest, and they continually prevented the opposition from scoring regularly, limiting them to just two points for the game to run out victors, 14-2.

Progressing to the qualifying final against Yarra Road Primary, it was again the Hamilton based team who controlled the game from the outset, cruising to a 26-11 victory and setting up a re-match against Holy Trinity.

In the final it was St Mary's which controlled the game, defensively stepping up and this time finding the basket themselves.

St Mary’s was able to reverse the earlier result to win by five points, 14-9, setting up a final two showdown.

In the grand final, St Mary’s faced off against Mitcham-based Rangeview Primary School, a team that was undefeated throughout.

Initially it was St Mary's taking early control of this nail-biting affair, heading into the half-time break fairly even on the scoreboard.

Energy levels were tested and in the latter stages of the second half, Rangeview began to pull away, proving too much for St Mary's to handle, with the locals eventually going down by five points at the final buzzer, 18-23.

It's a remarkable achievement from the Year 3-4 team, and no doubt will look to have another strong outing in the 2024 Hooptime campaign in the same age group, along with Year 5-6 competitive games.