It was hard work dragging ourselves out of bed this morning - another very short night! For those of us in the hotel we had a quick breakfast and boarded the bus to head back to Robert E Lee High School to pick up the boys who had been billeted.
We headed off by 8.30 in the direction of North Carolina, nearly 5 hours away. The boys were happy to talk about the great overnight experience they had, and shared the fun of their last night of billeting whilst on tour. Thankfully we were able to put on a couple of movies to while away the time - Wall Street and Salt! One highlight of the trip was the Golden Corral Buffet we stopped at for lunch - all you can eat and drink for $10! The salad bar, the hot meat and seafood, and the amazing dessert bar were unbelievable.
We arrived at our Hampton Inn in Raleigh at around 3.30pm, and quickly unpacked the bus and moved into our rooms, before we headed off to Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville - about and hour and a half drive. We arrived a little late and the Freshmen played first after a shortened warmup. The game was close throughout, continuing in the same vein as yesterday's, with excellent team play shown by Nelson Larkins, a fantastic rookie effort from James Mann and Nick Duncan shot a game equaling basket, was fouled and hit the extra. Final score was 37 - 40.
The Junior Varsity boys started slowly, not something we are accustomed to. They warmed up as the game progressed, and showed their usual strong defensive play and excellent drives to the basket. Alex 'Dino' Boardman continued his positive intimidating efforts, grabbing many huge rebounds and scoring from under the basket, and Micheal 'Spanky' Moore once again showed his class and leadership on the court. Jack LeRossignol played great D and kept the opposition guessing. We ended up losing 40 - 64.
Watching the Home Varsity team warming up was frightening - most players were taller than Pat Moore and with amazing athletic jumping ability. The two coaches (Lachlan and Richard) were thinking about a massacre occuring, but our boys had other plans. Our zone defence seemed to stifle the Trinity players and allowed our boys to run and score - at many times during the first half we were in the lead, up 19-18 at the quarter time break, and the half time score was 31 - 34. Sadly one of the Trinity boys started to hit his outside shots and they pulled ahead, but our boys continued with their energetic running style and kept the game close and interesting throughout. Final score was 55 - 73, but this did not reflect how well we played - possibly the best Nudgee Firsts game in the last two years. Standout efforts came from Jake and Tom Dunsmore, Pat Moore, Mullie Watson and Aidan Ptasznik, but truly all played really well.
A late night pizza delivery for dinner (12.15am!) with the promise of a later start in the morning ended the day.
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