By Tara Murray <\/p>\n
Craigieburn is continuing to ride a wave of momentum as it progresses into the second week of Essendon District Football League division 1 finals.<\/p>\n
Coming into the finals on a hot streak, the Eagles faced Avondale Heights in an elimination final on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The two sides had played in the final round of the season, with an Eagles win securing their finals spot.<\/p>\n
It was the same result as the Eagles continued on into the next round and the Heights season came to an end with the Eagles winning, 13.14 (93)-10.10 (70).<\/p>\n
Eagles football manager Jason Andrews said they continue to ride the wave. He said there was plenty of excitement around the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing and the boys enjoyed it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was so good and it was a great team effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are really up and about and the pressure was high for the whole four quarters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews said the playing group was a bit quieter before the game than they normally are as they focused on the task at hand.<\/p>\n
But come the first siren they were ready to go.<\/p>\n
They kicked the only four goals of the first quarter to lead by 27 points.<\/p>\n
It was a lead they would never give up.<\/p>\n
The margin was still 27 points at the main break.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a really good start, the tackling pressure and intensity was up,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cThey were playing for their teammates and not being selfish. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe settled in the first half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avondale Heights came hard in the second half and had the margin back to 18 points early in the last quarter.<\/p>\n
Andrews said they knew that Avondale would come at them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept working on what we had been doing and kept the pressure high,\u201d he said. \u201cWe moved the ball well and had patience as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we had it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews said it was a real good team effort with different players stepping up at different times.<\/p>\n
Skipper Jamie Gorgievski kicked four goals for the Eagles.<\/p>\n
Sammy Laffan, Gorgievski and Hayden Polly were named best. <\/p>\n
Stepping onto the big stage was Moustafa Darwish, who made his senior debut for the Eagles.<\/p>\n
He played for Vic Metro in the under-16 national championships.<\/p>\n
The Eagles now face West Coburg in a knockout semi final.<\/p>\n
West Coburg lost its qualifying final with Hillside on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Andrews said they were looking forward to the challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe led and they were able to peg it back late in the game,\u201d he said. \u201cThey won by three points. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are excited to be there and want to have more impact in finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are up for the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tara Murray Craigieburn is continuing to ride a wave of momentum as it progresses into the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-95342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}