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The last game of the tour is finally here and after a couple of long weeks we made the short drive (20-25 mins) to our opponents as we look to finish off the tour with a win. Our opponent have struggled throughout this season with a new coach and a young team so it would be an interesting contest. Bluffton is quite a large school, with approximately 1500 students, and has only been in existence for 5-6 years. Their facilities were amongst the best we have seen and were quite impressive. We were warmly greeted, with a number of students eager to chat with the Aussies!!

The game provided for a tight contest, with both sides making "mini" runs but neither team could establish any sort of break in the game. We rotated through the bench in the first half and the score was 25-24 in favour of the home team. Despite not playing our best basketball, we were right in it although our errors had been costly allowing Bluffton to take the lead.

The second half started quite well for us and we were able to build a small lead going into the fourth quarter. At one point, we led by 6 points and looked poised to seal a win. Unfortunately some costly mistakes and quick shots, even though there is no shot clock, allowed the home team to have possession of the ball with 15 seconds left in the game. As is always the case an off balance running lay-up was made with less than a second on the clock to give the home team a 2 point lead. A quick time-out and then an attempted last second shot were not able to be successfully carried out causing us to come up short 58-56. While disappointed with the loss the boys did compete and played quite well in patches. Lots of opportunities to learn and it will be interesting to see who returns home and puts into practice what they have learned while on tour.

Game MVP Nat Lawrence Notable Mentions Lachlan Parker & Murray Hooper

Pics and film below: