Fotu Hala. Photo supplied.Brian Kerr reports on Men’s A Grade Basketball from Wednesday night at the Oxford Street stadium.

Two games went ahead at Oxford Street on Tuesday night.

The first game was equal bottom-placed College taking on the equal top-placed MSA Team Donkey, who were again light on numbers.

College started the better of the two teams, however MSA Team Donkey settled and were able to get back into the game quickly. College had a narrow 22-21 lead at the end of the quarter.

College had matched up against their senior counterparts with a half court man to man defence.

Whilst that worked reasonably well in the first quarter and early in the second quarter, their defence lost structure, especially on the help defence.

MSA Team Donkey exploited this to create isolations and went into the break leading 46-38.

College started the half this time with a full court man to man defence.

It paid dividends as their help defence improved markedly, which put pressure on the MSA Team Donkey scorers.

This in turn seemed to enable their offence as they sped the game up and began finding some gaps in the MSA Team Donkey defensive line. College reclaimed the lead 68-62.

At the start of the fourth quarter MSA Team Donkey came back hard at the young College team, however College managed to absorb the pressure and this time they were able to control the last few minutes to take out a 93-81 win.

For College, Thomas Patterson continued his good form with 24 points.

Kambell Stills was very good on the boards, claiming a number of rebounds and finishing with 23 points in a good display.

Riley Sa with a tidy all round display finished with 15 points, Henry Hobbs chiming in with 10 points.

For Team Donkey, Pip Johnstone led the way with 32 points, again being strong on the drive and defensively good.

Fotu Hala was strong on some inside plays and netted himself 20 points.

Cam Butler was again tidy with his 18 points.

It turned out to be a good result for the College team after their heartbreak two-point loss against Rangiora the previous evening.

This time they managed to keep their composure in the fourth quarter.

The pleasing part was that they managed to reapply their defensive intensity after it had dropped a little in the second quarter, allowing an opening for Team Donkey.

Offensively they were good against Team Donkey’s zone defence and man to man.

As far as Team Donkey goes, they had good periods in the game especially the second quarter.

Unusually they missed some easy put backs which could’ve had an impact.

They are also missing the services of the Hunt brothers, which would bolster their ranks and offer some more options.

The second game was Newlands against Nomads.

Newlands were out to reverse the last second loss to Nomads in the first round.

The first quarter started fairly evenly as the teams went basket for basket.

Newlands lost a key player early in Nick Fechney who went down with a bad ankle injury. Despite this setback, Newlands then found another gear and took the lead 23-16.

The second quarter started evenly, however Newlands were able to get their break going and stretched the lead to 48-36.

After the half, Nomads struggled offensively as the Newlands defence were able to pressurise the ball carriers.

They were also tidy on their own boards limiting Nomads’ second shots.

By the end of the quarter they’d streaked away to a 75-52 score line.

Nomads were unable to make any inroads in the final quarter as Newlands finished the job 95-61.

For Newlands it was the Marc Juntilla show. He was everywhere and Nomads just could not shut him down. He finished with 49 points.

He was well supported by Randy Buenafe, who finished with 22 points. Sam Rodgers played well also, grabbing some good boards as well as finding the basket. He finished with 14 points.

For Nomads the pickings were sparse with Pete Kirwan and Nick Ross both hitting 13 points. Sam Moore and Jamie Smitheram both finished with 10 points.

Overall, Nomads just struggled offensively again.

They were missing three of their starters as well which didn’t help.

What they didn’t do was manage to shut down a Newlands team also devoid of a couple of their main scorers in Fechney and Marvin Agacer.

For Newlands, the bench guys stood up, got good minutes and overall did a good job.

However Marc Juntilla was excellent as mentioned.

He pulled off some audacious drives that left you wondering how?

© The Ashburton Guardian - 14 August 2020

William Joyce set his Ashburton College side alight, hitting three consecutive three-pointers. Photo supplied.Ashburton College took on Rangiora High School in front of a parochial Rangiora crowd on Tuesday night, and again it was a case of close, but no cigar.

Ashburton started well as they mitigated the zone press easily imposed on them by Rangiora.

They also worked hard on their own man-to-man defence, which had been lacking some cohesion in the last couple of games.

Rangiora exploited a couple of turnovers and looked to be getting on a roll until pressure from College gained turnovers to take them into the second quarter trailing by only five points, 23-18.

The second quarter was a tough battle as Rangiora came hard and the College team had to work hard against the taller Rangiora boys.

However good defence and good boxing out allowed College to break and they finished the quarter strongly taking a 51-44 lead into the second half.

College had a dream start to the second half as William Joyce lit up, hitting three, three-pointers to extend the lead to 18 points.

At 64-46, College were in a great place.

A time-out by Rangiora and some passive College defence on the dangerous Rangiora shooters allowed them to claw back to seven points at 75-68 at third quarter time.

The momentum had definitely turned.

Rangiora came out in the fourth and hit a three-pointer which pulled them closer, only for College to reply twice in kind.

It looked like College had steadied the ship, however Rangiora kept chipping away until they were tied at 87 apiece.

Jamie Reid hit a three-pointer for College and it looked like that would be enough.

However, a foul allowing Rangiora to score from the line and the failure to box out defensively allowed Rangiora to go up by two points.

There was still 11 seconds left to allow College to get the ball up and get a good look at the basket from three point range, only for it to be fractionally short of the mark, with Rangiora taking out a thriller 92-90.

For College, Riley Sa worked tirelessly at both ends of the court, finishing with 26 points.

Thomas Patterson had an excellent all-round game finishing with 23 points and finally William Joyce knocking down 14 points in a third quarter burst.

Kambell Stills claimed a load of rebounds to finish with 9 points, as did Jacob Swan who had a good game.

The College defence was vastly improved from the previous couple of weeks.

The help defence was very effective in minimising Rangiora’s inside game.

However, that can come at a risk if the outside shooters begin to find their range, which Rangiora did, hitting eight three-pointers in a row to begin their fightback in the third.

Some passive defence didn’t help the College boys either though.

Unforced turnovers at key times in the fourth quarter did not help their cause either.

This was a game for the taking, however Rangiora showed a lot of determination in getting their win.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 14 August 2020

The victorious Ashburton College senior basketball team following its win in the Aoraki tournament at the weekend. Photo supplied. A dominant Ashburton College senior girls basketball outfit have wiped the competition floor.

The team secured the inaugural Aoraki Girls’ Basketball Championships in Timaru on Sunday, off the back of an unbeaten tournament run.

AshColl topped the pool in a comprehensive manner, recording wins all three of its pool games.

The team kicked off the event with a 25-10 win over Timaru Girls’ High A, before running out 37-10 winners over Waitaki Girls.

A 37-13 win over Timaru Girls’ High 10A rounded out pool play for the Mid Cantabrians.

The side then prevailed 45-31 over Timaru Girls’ High A in the championship showdown to clinch the competition at the Southern Trust Events Centre.

Coach Roasty Douglas said the side’s seniority, experience and versatility were big factors.

‘We had goals for each game,” he said.

“We were able to experiment and play people in other positions and give others an opportunity.”

The team was also aided by the inclusion of national basketball rep Sophie Adams, and the return of Roi Makutu after a year off.

Douglas said there had been great collaboration between codes this year amid Covid, with basketball approaching netball around utilising players across codes.

“We’ve got two out-and-out basketballers, two netballers, two rugby players in the team,” he said.

“We’ve (sporting codes) worked together really well.”

Although the team was triumphant at the weekend in South Canterbury, they could not back it up against Rangiora High School in their Whelan Trophy encounter on Tuesday.

The senior girls fell to a 92-74 loss, while the senior boys went agonisingly close, pipped 92-90 in the corresponding Thomson Trophy fixture.

The AshColl girls are scheduled to host Avonside Girls’ on Tuesday, followed by the senior boys taking on St Thomas College.

By Adam Burns © The Ashburton Guardian - 13 August 2020