Last week’s quarter-final clash against Newman College was a highly skilful affair with the Slammers confronted at the home of the winners of the Catholic Schools division. The Slammers came away with a hard fought 3 point victory. Winning through to the semi-final of the All Schools division would’ve been a dream for this squad but they have been energised recently, playing with an undeniable chemistry and yesterday faced their nemesis Kingsway Christian College at the newly named Bendat Basketball Centre for the right to play in the Grand Final of this competition.

It was a tense affair and The Slammers started brilliantly to open up an unanswered 11-point lead.

A defensive front half blitz set by KCC after a time-out saw the Slammers make some errors and the tempo lifted considerably. The boys were then outscored by KCC and went into the half-time break with the score-line at 17 to 11 and Tim Gerschwitz in foul trouble with four against his name. The second half was an arm-wrestle and the young Slammers hot shot ‘Tiny’ Tim Gerschwitz was fouled out after a punishing charge.

The contest looked beyond the Slammers when the KCC lead blew out to 5 points with only a few minutes left. Some gritty defence and bold offence, particularly by young Year 9 guns Jamie Forsyth and Denzel Jackson kept Shenton in the game.

VC Yuval then found himself at the charity stripe with less than a minute to go with the score-line reading KCC 25 and Shenton 22. Yuval nailed the first shot but the clock was running down quickly. The second shot missed but the ball came off the rim to fall to Jack Simpson, who became the unlikely hero to nail a clutch 3-pointer right on the buzzer. Shenton win a thriller by one point (26 pts to 25 pts) to advance to next week’s GF. The coach jumped from the bench to embrace the jubilant players who were jumping together joyously and the elation from the support staff was immeasurable.