KZN Midlands Invitation Basketball Tournament

The annual KZN Midlands Invitation Girls’ Schools Basketball Tournament, hosted by Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High, was held over the weekend.Fifteen teams took part; ten in the A section and five in the B section.The UKZN Women’s team were there by invitation, but were not eligible to win the tournament.The Glen, from Pretoria, and three teams from out of the Midlands area made for some excellent competition for our local schools. The B section played a round robin and the overall winners were the Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School 2^nd Team followed by Maritzburg Christian School 1^st Team who beat the Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School Junior Team, by one point, in a thrilling match.The GHS Juniors were therefore in third place followed by Danville Juniors who beat Eshowe 15-14, also in a very exciting encounter, and lastly, newcomers, Eshowe.

The A section was played in two pools and was very competitive.On previous reputation The Glen was tipped to meet Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School 1^st Team in the final, but went down 30-32 in a hard fought match to a very capable Epworth Team.Zolee Sifumba top scored for the winners with 13 points with Nombulelo Ngcaku from The Glen scoring 23 points.The Glen also had a good match against UKZN losing 24-34. Both Sifumba and Ngcaku were recognised as top contributers of the tournament.

In the other pool, GHS 1^st Team showed their potential by winning most of their matches, fairly convincingly.St John’s, who have had a very good start to the schools’ league, kept in the game in the first half, but GHS ran away with the game in the second half, winning 52-12.Top scorer in this game, for GHS, was Sbahle Mkhize, with 14 points, with everyone else sharing the other points. The experience of GHS, led by their captain, Anele Shandu, ensured that they headed the pool, as they beat Danville, St Anne’s and Carter.

The playoff matches for the A section were held on Sunday.St Anne’s met Durban Girls’ High for the ninth place playoff and narrowly won 34-32; Alex played old rivals Carter and though they led at one stage of the game, they went down 21-26; Danville had an exciting match against The Glen and at one stage looked set to upset the more experienced side.However, Danville rely too much on their fast break which allows Sinae Alberts to score most of their points, (she scored 16 of their 18 points) and so they eventually lost 18-28 to The Glen.St John’s worked hard in their match against the experienced UKZNP team and held them to 5-5 in the first quarter, and 11-12 at the half.The UKZNP team ran away with the game in the third quarter and finally won 33-22.Shorty Ndlela had a very good tournament for St John’s. In the final the GHS 1^st Team met a depleted Epworth team, as their matrics had other academic commitments.The Epworth team put up a brave fight in the first five minutes of the match as the teams traded baskets, but once GHS got into gear they showed their supremacy.The first quarter score was 13-4 to GHS.They kept the momentum going and led 28-7 at the half, with the final score of 58-11 sealing the tournament for GHS once again.It was fitting that Anele Shandu led the scoring in the final as she was recognised as the most complete player at the tournament.The Girls’ High team is well balanced and all their players are able to play good defence, keeping the opponents under pressure all the time, and when needed score points in almost every match.

Final standings:

B section: 1^st GHS 2nds; 2^nd MCS; 3^rd GHS Juniors; 4^th Danville Juniors; 5^th Eshowe

A section: 1^st GHS 1sts; 2^nd Epworth; 3^rd St John’s; 4^th The Glen; 5^th Danville 1sts; 6^th Carter; 7^th Alex; 8^th St Anne’s; 9^th DGHS.(Not ranked – UKZNP)

Article supplied by Val Fowler

Tags: Basketball, Carter High School, Danville High School, Durban Girls High School, Epworth High School, Eshowe High School, Maritzburg Christian School, Pietermaritzburg Girls High, St Anne's High School, St John's high School, The Glen High School, University of Kwazulu Natal