MyBasketball

Friday the 8th of May saw Willowridges’s male sides take a daunting trip down the road to rivals St. Albans College for a league fixture that promised a lot of fireworks. Willowridge U/14 and U/16 A boys needed to win these games to stay in contention as they had already lost this season and the First Team had a score to settle as they had lost in a controversial manner to the same side last year.

The U/14 game started off slow with St. Albans taking possesion but not putting it too good use as they were a bit ‘too patient’ on offence allowing the defence to catch them out. A few lay up’s saw St. Albans take the lead and Willows had it all to do in this do-or-die encounter. Dumisani Shongwe and Theo Malatji, the Willowridge coaches, did not waste much time in calling a time out to restructure their game plan. This seemed to have been a wise move as Willows tightened up defence and hardly let another basket in for the first half. College had many players with potential but minor issues like constant three second violations, fouls and the usual jitters had them playing from an almost stagnant position on offence. Victor Fouda, the College coach should have done better to make use of his no.15, a player the size of your average U/19 SG who could easily pass of for Shaq’s son (except he is white). This giant was well contained by Willows and when he did get chances he failed to convert. The second half saw Willows adopt the ‘draw fouls’ approach as they drove the ball to the basket hard drawing some crucial fouls and netting important free throws. When College stopped fouling it was the shooting guards turn to shine as they dropped jump shots like a heavy load, Willows had it pretty much wrapped up half way through the second half. The excitement got to the young boys who began giving away easy possession and making clumsy passes on the fast break, this allowed College to score some easy lay ups to salvage some pride on the score sheet. Willowridge U/14 boys outclassed St. Albans to emerge 30 – 20 victors. The dream lives on. Read the rest of this entry →