On Sunday the junior teams went to St. Edwards, Poole for Round 2 of the Dorset Junior Basketball Tournament.
The U14's were again understrength, with only 4 players, with Louis Parkes and Reece Morgan, in their first basketball matches, playing alongside Raul Mladin and Harry Midgley.
In the first game the well-trained Dorset Storm were too strong, with a full squad, and the boys could do little about being one player short. Although they never gave up and played the full 30minutes til the buzzer. It ended 22-44.
In the second fixture against Weymouth Giants, Harry and Raul did the majority of the scoring, but a long shot by Reece added 2 more. With Reece and Louis relaxing and finding some confidence, the boys worked tirelessly and quickly jumped out to a 8 point lead at the half. As we tired though, the Giants cut into our lead, but a quick break and drink settled the nerves and we got the deserved win, 43-28, to finish 2nd overall on the day.
The U17's being more rehearsed and having had more matches together were looking to go one better, having just missed out the the Tropics in Round 1 in October.
The first game vs. Dorset Storm was a solid performance, with Boris Petrov leading the scoring, backed up by sharp shooting from Manuel Carrillo and Shawn Krairit. It was clear from the off, that the Storm were not firing and we jumped out to a convincing lead that we never gave up. Kian was playing solid underneath, grabbing rebounds, whilst Leon Weichart, in his first Seahawks game, was playing well, with solid defence. It ended 52-33.
The Tropics had beaten the Storm by a full 20points, so we knew the Tropics/Seahawks game was going to be close and decide the round again.
The Tropics jumped out to a 0-8 lead which had the Seahawks on the ropes and dropping their heads. But a time out and regathering, saw the boys pick up the offence and re-evaluate their defence and play more sensible basketball. Boris was again strong underneath with Manuel doing damage from the outside. Raul, playing up an age group found his confidence and hit a couple of shots and by mid way through the second half we were back to within 7points but the game and momentum was swinging in our favour. We kept cutting into their lead, every play working hard on D to get the stops and then running and moving the ball to find the shots. With 2mins to go, Raul hit the go-ahead jumper for Tropics to call the Time-out to attempt to ice the momentum. But Boris, added an And-1 and solid D from the team, saw us finish strong and grab the win 47-45.
A great close game, showing determination from our guys to get back in it. But also a well spirited performance from the Tropics.