Photo supplied.An 86-65 win over Ellesmere High School on Tuesday night was another step in the right direction for Ashburton College’s senior boys’ basketball team, according to their coach.

Playing at Leeston in Canterbury secondary school basketball’s Thomson Trophy division two competition, Ashburton College started with a zone press and attacked the Ellesmere guards with good results early.

But they soon started making some uncharacteristic errors and the effectiveness of the press waned, allowing Ellesmere to settle into their offence and bring their tall players into action.

But College’s zone defence worked hard, coach Brian Kerr said.

“The encouraging thing was that every time the ball was passed inside to the Ellesmere big men, the college defence was able to collapse back onto that player surrounding him and then applying immense pressure,” Kerr said.

College took a seven-point lead into the second quarter and continued to put pressure on, negating Ellesmere’s danger man and using their speed to get out to a 47-31 lead at halftime.

Ellesmere started the third quarter strongly though, as college’s intensity waned. But college’s bench players got that intensity back up and college led at three quarter time 70-56, with a strong finish seeing them take it out 86-65.

Kerr said it was a mixed game, with wonderful interplay between his players.

“Unfortunately, some of this good work was undone by stages of poor execution especially on offence.

“We probably missed a dozen easy layups which was both frustrating and unusual.

“Our break was also a little disjointed as our outlet passes lacked accuracy at times.”

Penuel Pantaleon was an absolute dynamo particularly on defence, Kerr said.

“He was into everything and created chaos for Ellesmere.  He’s not a big guy but his defensive rebounding was great.”

Combining with Fotu Hala (who top scored with 20 points) and Harry Jackson (13 points) off the bench, they did a good job on the defensive boards, while Marc Juntilla (17 points) also had another strong game.

“I thought Abel Wilson (12 points) had a good all round game and produced some great drives to the basket.  He just seemed to score when we were a little devoid of ideas on offence.”

Meanwhile, in the girls’ Whelan Trophy top division, Ashburton College played what coach Mark Douglas said was their best game of the season, but lost.

They went down 84-61 to top seeds St Andrew’s.

“We competed for the whole 40 minutes,” Douglas said.

“With eight remaining fully fit players they all played as good as I’ve seen them play this season.

“With a couple of weeks to refresh and rest injuries before we kick into the back half of the season there is optimism for the next round.”

Douglas said his side needed to keep building with South Islands looming at the start of September.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 4 July 2018