Coming into the weekend, the Goulburn Bears were widely considered the young upstarts of the Waratah League Youth Men's competition.
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But after last night's match against the Inner West Bulls White, they showed they can mix with the best in the competition.
With an average age well under the 23-year limit, Goulburn has struggled to stay competitive this season, and had a record of two wins and four losses going into last night's match.
Up against the top-of-the-table Bulls at the Goulburn Basketball Arena, the Bears almost caused the upset of the season.
"If that's the best team in the league, we're getting closer to those guys and that's what you want," Bears coach, Eddie Teague, said following Goulburn's 73-71 loss.
"We're certainly getting better as a group and last night was an example of if you work hard, you can compete. It's not always about the winning, it's about competing and improvement. That's a credit to them, they've got to keep working hard and improving."
For much of the match, the Bears led the visitors on the scoreboard. In a pattern which became more prevalent as the match went on, Goulburn would often surge to the lead with an excellent passage of play, before their level would subsequently drop, along with their accuracy.
This repeated throughout the night, leading to a swinging match in which the lead changed hands multiple times.
"Although I was happy with their performance overall, it was disappointing we went up by four or six points in the third and didn't put them away," Teague said.
"We didn't put the hammer down and a couple of boys went off on their own. We play well as a group for most of the game, but when it comes to the crunch at the end, the team who plays together and runs together wins."
Working in Goulburn's favour was the massive crowd support. Every point the Bears scored was cheered loudly, which brought to mind for Teague the days when he first came to Goulburn in the 80s.
"It takes us back into the days when I first came out from America, where if you didn't get to the game an hour beforehand, you didn't get a seat," he said.
"We used to put seating all around the court and opposition teams used to hate coming to Goulburn. I think that's why we play so much better at home, the boys are motivated and want to play better in front of their mates.
"The crowd made a massive difference last night and motivated the boys to stay close the whole way through."
The mania inside the Bear Pit reached another level when Riley Weeks made a clutch three-pointer to draw scores level at 71-71 with just 20 seconds to go.
As the Bulls rebounded, the Bears crowded inside the three-point line and tried to stifle any chance of scoring. However, Finn McDowell-Male sunk a difficult lay-up to take the Bulls to 73, leaving Goulburn only two seconds to find another three-pointer for the win.
Fortune did not favour the Bears twice, and the home side was cheered by the crowd after the buzzer for its valiant fight.
This weekend, Goulburn will play the St George Saints at the Hurstville Aquatic Centre. The Bears will go into the match as slight favourites against the eighth-placed Saints, and the match will get underway from 3.30pm on Saturday, June 5.
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