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U13 National Basketball Champions

How could anyone have predicted a perfect season when we started in September 2010? Not many would have ventured to do so even realising that this team had the potential from what they did in the Form 1 season last year.

Well, the team did go through the season undefeated with a 21 – 0 record as well and being County and National Cup Champions. The team won three games in the National Rally to open up the season, one Friendly game against Northampton, five games in the District League and six games in the County League and more games in the Cup Competitions.

In County Cup competition, the team beat Richard Hale 112 – 26 in the Semi-finals and defeated Sandringham 107 – 37 in the Cup Final.

The day after the County Cup Final, the team travelled to Nottingham where they defeated St Margaret’s from Liverpool 73 – 62 to win the National Cup for 2011. This was their fourth win this National competition – beating St Martin’s, Holy Trinity and Stockwell Park along the way. As it turned out, that was also their last game of the season – a fitting way to cap off a great year – Under-13 National Cup Champs 2011 (NSBBC – UK Under-13 Champs 2011).

They dominated a good number of their opponents – outscoring their combined opponents by more than 35 points per game (77.7 – 29.6). The points were well distributed with Philip Ball, Callum Clifford, George Duncan, Huey Glynn-Jones, Tom Johnson, Aaron Kelly, James Kelly, Sam Murphy and Sean O’Hara all being major contributors along the season. Many others also helped in other areas of the game.

Their success came from early morning shooting in the gym, some very hard lunchtime and after school sessions early in the season since the games were not to start until October 15th , 2010. We actually took advantage of the time to get the team prepared for our hosting the National Rally involving St Martin’s, EPCH, Helsby and Notre Dame (who chose to concede the game to us after won our first three games).

In addition, a good number of the team members were involved in the Barcelona trip during the October half-term. This proved very beneficial in getting the team together for the start of a long season. The games we played there – both A’s and B’s – were very different from what we expected but proved beneficial, even if the A’s played against older boys in both games. That trip will hold fond memories for many years to come.

In all twenty-five players took part in the “A” games and twenty players took part in the four “B” games which were used to get playing time for more players on the squad. This set the total games played by this age group at twenty five.

Well done to all the boys who started the season and actually finished it as some players chose to drop out of the programme. Many thanks for your dedication throughout the season. Well done to all the boys who led the team as “captain” because we rotated that honour throughout the season. Brother Roy thanks everyone involved in any way with the squad and the parents for their support of the programme by often driving you home after training or games.