The basketball season has started strongly with some notable performances from both boys and girls teams.
In the Under 14 boys age group the team remain unbeaten, having defeated Sandringham and Nicholas Breakspear in the District League and St Columbas College in the County league 80 - 43. The victory against Sandringham was extremely hard fought and particularly impressive as Sandringham are last years County Champions. A possible County final beckons if they can maintain their hard work and commitment to training. Billy Cresswell has captained the team and led by example, but the whole squad are really starting to play some good team basketball.
In the girls age groups, the year 8 team competed a year out of age in the District Rally and were only beaten by size, strength and speed and certainly not basketball ability or hard work. They defeated Sandringham and Roundwood Park losing the other three games and finished fourth out of six teams. The fact they only lost by four points to the eventual winners (Nicholas Breakspear) is a measure of how well they played. Their performance bodes well for the Under 13 County League Season.
The Under 16 girls team retained their District Title, beating Sandringham 15 - and Roundwood Park 20 - 5. The squad consisted of 7 year 10 and 2 year 11 students. They are an impressive team and hopefully the year nine's will go on to reach their third successive County Final this year in the year 10 age group and the year eleven's will do the same in the Senior Girls County Competition.
The year seven girls team played really well in their District Tournament, winning all four games, scoring 30 points and only conceding 5.
The first game saw an easy 12 - 0 win against Samuel Ryder and this was followed up by 6 - 0 and 4 - 0 victories against Roundwood Park and Sir John Lawes respectively. Our final game against Sandringham was our closest but, even after making a number of substitutions throughout the match, we still came out 8 - 5 winners.
Lucia Grimer was our top scorer with 10 points, closely followed by Amber Young with 8. Our team defence was impressive, epitomised by Alice King against Sir John Lawes who sacrificed the chance to score and marked their strongest player out of the game.
The team now go on to represent St Albans in the County Tournament later in the season.
Well done and lets hope the season continues to be so successful!
