The U15 Boys B team closed their day three play against Tauranga City in the late game. The boys had lost their earlier game against a quality Wellington side who were unlucky to not make the top eight coming out of a tough pool.

The final score against Wellington was a humbling 93-68 loss setting the B team up to play Tauranga.

The first quarter started well with Harbour getting out to a decent early lead. A late run by Tauranga meant that at the first break the score read 20-18 in the B teams favour.

At the start of the second Vincent Trasmontero did a great job attacking and getting steals. Jackson Port impressed with a solid right to left cross over and bucket then followed that up with another a short time later.

At the half things were all square at 35 apiece.

The third period started tight and it was Joon Back for the Harbour team that opened the game up with terrific drives in traffic and laying the ball up over the bigs from Tauranga. Back also made it to the freethrow line and knocked them down.

Tyler Martin from Harbour had a rough game due to the psychological warfare that Tauranga was employing with him. They assigned Toby Smethurst to face guard Martin wherever he went.

Faceguarding is when someone stands right up close to you and never leaves your side no matter where you go often staring into your eyes. Apart from it making it very difficult to get open for the ball it is incredibly annoying and obviously got into Martin’s head.

He reacted by draining a deep three when he got loose from the defense but on the following possession was called for a technical after being tripped over while dribbling and not getting the foul call. Coach Jordy Jamieson questioned the ref and the next time Martin had the rock he got the make up foul call going his way.

The quarter finished with Tauranga squeezing ahead 54-50 as the Harbour team were getting flustered by the atmosphere and the foul calls.

In the final period it was Back again for Harbour leading the way scoring seven points early with two fantastic drives then a three pointer drawing a timeout from Tauranga.

Tyler Martin was able to shake his faceguarding defender and took a wild three on the hop which banked in and he drew the foul. Martin knocked in the freethrow for a rare four point play as Harbour cut the lead to two.

Down the stretch Jackson Port was able to get to the line knocking down three clutch freethrows to tie the game.

With 13 seconds left in the game Back drove and got fouled but missed both freethrows leaving the game 69 all. Luckily Harbour got the put back to go off the second miss and Tauranga called a final time out to try win it or send the game to overtime.

The resulting play was a horrible three at the buzzer and Harbour took it out 71-69.