Last Friday our U16 boys travelled to Manchester to take on Didsbury High School in the last sixteen of the English Schools Basketball competition. As student athletes they didn’t waste the hours trapped on a mini bus, they took their study notes with them in preparation for the upcoming science assessments (Thank you Mrs Axon for the resources).
We knew that this was going to be tough before arriving but walking into the gym we were met by a team lead by a GB and England international and stacked with Premier and Conference National league players. However one thing we had in our favour was a great team, not lots of individuals, we had discussed this earlier in the week everyone knew their role in the team and they were ready to play it. The second thing that we have as a team is extreme positivity and confidence. As a great coach once said “ Where you see big – I see slow, where they see small – I see speed” that summed this game up as our speed and athleticism soon got their bigger more powerful players into foul trouble in what was a very tight competitive game of contrasting styles. We played fast team basketball, they played to the strength of their individuals.
I could not be more proud of the players, this is their best performance so far, and one of the best I have seen during the twenty plus years of taking basketball teams at the school. Nye was awesome on the boards again, Mathew played through the pain of an injured ankle to give us some valuable points in the paint, and of course a trademark three. Ali Yousif was awesome off the bench picking up an offensive rebound and put back that he really had no right to do, Ayan seeing out the final minutes of the game for us when others were flagging, Bruno, Ben L and Jakoby bringing energy from the bench when we needed it and Callum being his usual athletic self-playing great transition defence as well as finding the time to be an offensive threat going to the basket. The final pieces of the puzzle were our two guards who were simply unplayable, regardless how Didsbury came at them, big defenders, small quick ones or for a lot of the game double teaming them Ben B and Harry were offensively outstanding combining for 69 points (Ben 35, Harry 34). Those two may carry the “glory” but they will be the first to acknowledge that they could not have done what they did without the others and that sums up this TEAM. All that effort resulted in a 87-101 victory - amazing.
That leaves us to play Northampton International Academy at home in the last eight. 3 games to go to our first National Championship.
