Bavaria Blue Stars snatch U12 league at the death

A sizeable crowd of parents and friends will remember this match for a long time.

The most successful and hard-fought of all of GABBA’s League competitions ended with Ollie Lines grabbing an offensive rebound and sinking the buzzer beating shot to give the underdogs, Bavaria Blue Stars, a 38-37 win and the Under 12 League, sending their supporters into a frenzy of unbridled delight.

This was their second win over favourites Damex UDEA Soldiers, and they needed this to clinch the title on head-to-head, having dropped points to Lincoln Bayside and Europa Valmar. A nervous first quarter ended 6-4 to Stars, but Soldiers were better in the second, taking it 8-16, to lead 14-20 at the break. Stars regained the lead, taking the third quarter 14-6, and the fourth quarter was an epic contest, culminating in joy for one and anguish for the other.

In reality, neither team deserved to lose, but such is sport, and congratulations to Bavaria Blue Stars, whose top scorer was Ben Lejeune with 12 points, the same tally as Soldiers’ Daniella Martinez, one of the brightest lights in this mixed league and, potentially, a star of the not so distant future.