This week our year eight basketball team took on Dame Allen in the semifinal of the Jnr NBA competition. This was an incredibly close game throughout. JPA started exceptionally strongly with Jasper and Calvin hitting back to back 3’s early on in the first quarter. Michael was playing incredibly tough defence (too tough at times!) which really sparked our transition offence, Tiam was chasing down loose balls keeping the play alive, Elvis was settling into his first game nicely, whilst Levin and Howie were pulling the strings and controlling the game from the point guard position. The game flowed really well with neither team being able to break away in terms of scoring at half time we were tied at 21-21.
In the third quarter despite playing well we just could not get the score board moving and in desperation started to take some rather too long and unwise shots whilst everything seemed to fly in for the hosts, including the luckiest bounce I have seen in my years of watching basketball leaving the team eight points down with just the final quarter to go. All the players listened intently to the team talk and carried the instructions out to the letter, playing with more confidence and attacking the basket.
Gabriel was particularly influential during this period of the game as he regularly took his player off the dribble and got to the basket, the score was helped along by a 3 pointer from Howie, a lovely long range 2 from Michael and some fantastic off ball work by James. Meanwhile Eric was rebounding with great efficiency and Dame Allen were struggling to contain Jasper in the paint leading to several quick fouls which gave us the advantage of shooting multiple free throws, eventually tying the game once again with less than a minute to go. In the very tense final moments Howie was sent to the free throw line and with ice running through his veins he made one of his two shots to give us a one point lead with 12 seconds to play. All we needed to do now was see the game out, some incredibly intense defence forced the turnover from Dame Allen and we were winners.
An absolutely fantastic achievement in the first year of competitive basketball – bring on the final!!
