Canterbury Metro U19 Womens NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Under 19 National Basketball Champs at Nelson

Canterbury has another National championship winning team in the province with the U19 Women going through last week’s tournament unbeaten with a huge team effort. TSarah Waldrons team beat  Southland 112-44 in pool play, Waikato 58-49, North Harbour 75-63 and Wellington 64-45

In the semi’s Canterbury ousted Otago 61-52 through the efforts of Tessa Boagni (17), Mary Goulding (18) and Laken Wairau (15.) Waikato beat Waitakere West in the other Semi 55-38.

Canterburys young Wildcats stepped up in the grand final as Canterbury Metro beat Waikato 58-45 on the back of a fine doubled double by Tessa Boagni with 22 points and 21 rebounds, Tessa Morrison also had a fine game 12 points, 7 rebounds and Laken Wairau 10 points. Canterbury Country finished 11^th place

For her efforts all week Tessa was awarded the MVP title and was joined in the Tournament team by Mary Goulding and Laken Wairau

 Coach Sarah Waldron sent in her comments  Congratulations Sarah

It was a complete team effort including in the final when Sapphire (Wairau) had to go in there to cover early foul trouble and she shone. No one would have thought she was only 14 as she defended and scored with such maturity. 

We were blessed by having a dream team that included Tess Boagni, Laken (Wairau) and Mary (Goulding) who made the tournie team but it takes 5 on the court and we always had 5 out there that could not be stopped. 

We had height which allowed us to go inside and if they sagged on to our bigs, we had the shooting power on the outside to punish them for sagging.

The defensive efforts of Terina (Wanoa) and Tessa (Morrison) in the Otago and Waikato games particularly was super huge. Without their defensive efforts we might not have got the title as they shut down their key scorers. 

Of course having a class player like Tessa Boagni out there meant she was often paid a lot of attention but this allowed others in our team to show their ability to score which allowed Tessa the space to continue to show why she deserved MVP. 

Canterbury U19 Men capture 7^th place

The Canterbury Men, coached by Jamie Graham were purhaps the unluckiest team of the year. They lost two key players prior to the tournament, Shou Nisbet (broken wrist )and Jahnim Campbell (broken foot), in the last couple of weeks of the build up but managed to find a replacement in Ihaka Pink one week out.

Pool play saw them beat Auckland Counties 87 - 71, Southland 101 - 46 and then lose a heart breaker to finalist Waikato 103 - 102 on a 3 point buzzer beater with 1 second left. They then lost to the other finalist Rotorua in the QF by just 2pts in another valient effort. After dropping the next game to Waitakere West 97 - 79 they pulled it together to beat Wellington 86-60in their final game to take 7th place.

Canterbury Country finished in 11^th place, beating Porirua 88-84 in its last game

Congratulations also to Marty Davison and Matt Bathurst as they were rewarded with consistant efforts to officiate the Men’s Grand Final, won by Rotorua 76-72 over Waikato.