That came to the fore again when Riverside's junior boys hung on to a final-shot 61-59 overtime win against Burnie High in Sunday's grand final.

Coach Mandy Gibson was relieved after the year 7 and 8 students had continued the school's winning tradition at the state championships

"I'm quite happy about it. We're a really talented sporting school, but our 9-10 boys unfortunately had a couple of injuries in their semi-final and crashed out pretty badly.

"So it was really awesome for our boys to lift and be able to get the win for the school."

Riverside trailed by nine points entering the last six minutes of the final term, but narrowed that to four with 80 seconds left on the clock.

Aiden Gibson had put up a timely three-pointer and then clinched a two to tie the scores up 54-54 in front of a packed Elphin Sports Centre.

Riverside could not take the lead though the first four minutes of overtime until Lachlan May's vital three put his side in front by one.

Burnie scored on the foul line to level before Lachlan Brewer broke the deadlock with just 3.3 seconds left.

"We obviously ran a play that we wanted to run to score with a few seconds left and the boys just executed it perfectly," Gibson said.

"So you can't ask for much more than that - particularly after a timeout in overtime."

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

Brewer's clutch shot gave the matchwinner 25 points in the junior state decider, while May finished with 19 and Gibson 13 to shoot all but four of Riverside's points.

The coach felt the clash was worthy of a grand final.

"We had such an awesome game, but credit to Burnie - they were fantastic," she said.

"They were awesome and were in the same boat that we had five games in two days.

"There were some tired boys out there, but the fact was they were still making really good decisions."

St Patrick's College came up just short against Sacred Heart College Hobart, letting the senior boys' championship slip away in a 54-49 loss.

The Prospect school held the lead halfway through the final term for 12 seconds, but could not sustain the grand final intensity.

After a sluggish start trailing Sacred Heart 10-2, a first-half fightback levelled the scores 21-21 at the break.

The fluctuating affair had the Hobart school lead early only for St Pats to square up 33-33 at three-quarter-time.

Brad Morgan finished with 15 points and Liam Jones 11.

Burnie's Marist College won a lopsided senior girls' grand final 71-28 over St Mary's College, Hobart.

St Brendan-Shaw College, Devonport, claimed a 46-31 victory over St Mary's for the junior girls' title.

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