Church Romp On
Tagged in: Tournaments
Ranigora High School held basketball powerhouse Church College under 100 points for the first time on Tuesday.
And that should almost be considered a victory itself.
Church rolled to their fourth straight 40-plus point win instead to be one of seven teams to qualify for Thursday’s quarterfinals with a pool game to spare at the 2008 AA Secondary Schools National Championships – presented by Furnware – in Palmerston North.
The defending champs and number one seeds have set themselves apart from the rest of the girls field, with an average winning margin of 63.5 points per game to top pool A without even cranking out of third gear.
Church defeated Rangiora, previously unbeaten before their afternoon game, 98-54, just falling short of three digits for the fourth time at the tournament – following on from a 111-27 and 110-41 wins over Wainuiomata High and St Kentigern College on Monday, and 101-26 over Tauranga Girls College on Tuesday morning.
“Our goal isn’t to score 100 points but some teams just make it easy,” said Church College coach Tyler Wilkinson, following her team’s 4-0 start that has set up a quarterfinal date with the second-placed team from pool C.
“Rangiora, at least, made it tough for us. They’re a very physical team. They came in and beat us up. They’re well drilled and I’d never underestimate them. I always get a bit nervous when you don’t get challenged in pool play.”
New Zealand under-16 rep Moengaroa Subritzky top-scored with 26 points against Tauranga, while Fijian international and 2007 MVP Letava Whippy had a game-high 28 points and Subritzky 17 points against Rangiora.
While still using their lethal fast-break to pile on the points, Church has got consistent outside shooting from Austin Rarere and Subritzky and their defence has choked the game out of teams, holding their opponents to single-digit points in eight of 16 quarters.
“They’ve played well, I’ve been able to rest some of our starters and only run two starters the whole time,” Wilkinson said.
“When you look at our stats, they’re spread across everyone. There’s no one player that’s scoring all the points. Tava does lead well and the girls all follow her but if she’s not having a good game, there’s someone else in the team to put their hand up.
“Everyone’s scoring, everyone’s playing good D and we’ve got a good team spirit going.”
So far, so good for the Church College ladies.
And it’s the same for the school’s boys team, who improved to 4-0 with wins over Palmerston North Boys High and Francis Douglas Memorial College on Tuesday, to sit atop pool D and virtually assured a top-eight berth.
Joining the Church College girls in the quarterfinals, with identical 4-0 records after two days are Waimea College, who survived a one-point scare against Avondale College, and Hamilton’s Fraser High in pool C and Massey High, who got two game-high performances from Mesha Blair in wins over Cashmere High and Rangi Ruru Girls School, from pool D.
Fraser High’s Francea Hansen top-scored in the team’s morning win over Avondale College with 29 points, while Jelena Vucinic led the scoring for Waimea in both games as they reached their second straight quarters.
Boys defending champs St Patrick’s College of Wellington booked their place in the quarterfinals with two more comfortable wins over Waimea College and Dilworth School, setting up a Wednesday afternoon game against fellow quarterfinal-bound Hamilton’s Fraser High to decide the top qualifier in pool A.
St Pat’s guard Brook Ruscoe, last year’s boys MVP, produced two quality games, dropping 29 points against Waimea and 30 points against Dilworth, while team-mate Jake Ashby produced 28 points.
Westlake Boys High, winners of two of the last three national titles, defeated Shirley Boys High and New Plymouth Boys High on Tuesday to lock themselves into the quarterfinals.
St Andrew’s College’s Junior Tall Black Logan van Beek produced the tournament’s best single-game performance with 40 points in a 97-66 win over Mana College. But SAC’s last eight path may have been cut off in the morning with a 75-68 loss to New Plymouth, leaving the Christchurch school relying on an unlikely win over Westlake over a Rotorua Boys High win over New Plymouth.
Game On - Daily News (98KB pdf)
