Gleaves Takes Pain, And Title
Tagged in: Tournaments
Brandon Gleaves had felt pain in his back since the second quarter. But as he pulled down the game’s last rebound and hurled the ball in the air as time expired, all that was gone.
Gleaves, standing at 1.85m (6ft 1in) towered head, shoulders and sometimes upper torso above his team-mates and opponents at the Oreo Under-13 and Under-15 National Championships in Rotorua, earning under-13 boys MVP honours.
Gleaves had 29 points and almost as many rebounds in a dominant display, leading Canterbury to the under-13 boys title with a thrilling 60-58 win over North Harbour in the final on Friday at Unison Arena.
The Canterbury big received an elbow in the lower back early in the second quarter, forcing him to the bench for treatment for most of the period, watching as fellow unbeaten side North Harbour rallied for a one-point lead, 29-28, at halftime.
“When it happened during the game, it was a real stinging pain, it felt like I’d been stung by a bee,” Gleaves said.
“It hurt to run and it was hard to get back on defence. And then Jamie gave me a pep talk about what it means to be an MVP and I went back out and told myself ‘forget the pain, forget the pain’ after a little while it went away.”
After scoring only 12 points in the second quarter, and with their centre back in the game, Canterbury pulled back ahead with 20 points in the third quarter, including 12 from Gleaves. Harbour had jumped out to a five-point lead straight after halftime, their biggest lead of the game, but saw Canterbury score 12 of the next 14 points to take the lead back.
With points at a premium in the fourth, the Cantabs did just enough to stay in front, with Gleaves and fellow tournament team selection DJ Shadrock owning the boards, giving a poor shooting Canterbury team second, third and fourth chances on many possessions.
Canterbury led by five points with eight minutes to play but Harbour would not go away, ramping up the defensive pressure, forcing turnovers and retaking the lead for a short time before Gleaves and Shadrock scored on consecutive possessions.
Captain Luuk Witteveen, one of Harbour’s two tournament teamers along with Niko Morales, had a chance to level the scores with 1:15 remaining from the free throw line but missed both, then Morales missed a runner in the lane on their final possession.
“Yeah, how did we pull that one out?” Canterbury coach Jamie Graham asked rhetorically after the game.
“We’ve been down before, the semis and quarter, the last two games. We knew that we could come back and take anything that was thrown at us. We know that we have to play some good defence against these North Island teams because they’re quicker than us and we had to play good help defence.”
Shadrock had 14 points and double-digit rebounds, while Morales was Harbour’s best with 14 points.
The Canterbury girls made it double under-13 championships for the Mainlanders with a 61-60 win over North Harbour.
Gabriela Edmondson, who missed a pair of freebies after time had expired, top-scored with 17 points as Canterbury clung to their lead in a frantic final two minutes of a final that started in Unison Arena but finished in the Sportsdrome after a lights failure sent the main stadium into darkness.
With a 58-51 lead, Canterbury looked ready to put the game away with five minutes to run. However, the Harbour girls had other ideas.
After closing within five, Bianca Nukunuku completed a three-point play with 1:40 remaining to get Harbour within a basket at 60-58. In a frenetic up-and-down stretch, Kendal Hastie made one-of-two free throws to take the Cantabs back up by three, then Harbour’s Petra Dye-Hutchinson made two freebies with 42.3 seconds left to pull within one.
Canterbury’s defence held firm in the final two possessions, girls MVP Tessa Boagni coming up with a block and steal on consecutive defensive stops, while Harbour missed several potential game-winning shots.
“It was pretty tight the whole game, we were up four at the end of the third quarter,” Canterbury coach Mandy Dellaca said.
“We practiced that end of the game pressure and trying to keep the ball away from them. We had three of our best players foul out but that shows the depth on our bench. We had a girl from the bench step up and hold her own.”
Captain Laken Wairau had 14 points and Boagni 10 points for Canterbury, while Annabelle Jenkins scored a game-high 20 points and Dye-Hutchinson 19 points for Harbour, with both making the tournament team.
Oreo Under-13 National Championships
Rotorua Events Centre, Rotorua
FINALS
Boys
Canterbury 60 (Brandon Gleaves 29, DJ Shadrock 14, Ihaka Pink 10) North Harbour 58 (Niko Morales 14, Jack Salt 11)
Girls
Canterbury 61 (Gabriela Edmondson 17, Laken Wairau 14, Tessa Boagni 10) North Harbour 60 (Annabelle Jenkins 20, Petra Dye-Hutchinson 19, Bianca Nukunuku 11)
FINAL PLACINGS
Boys
1 Canterbury
2 North Harbour
3 Waikato Black
4 Wellington
5 Waitakere City
6 Massey
7 Hibiscus Coast
8 Hutt Valley
9 Nelson
10 Otago
11 Hawke’s Bay
12 New Plymouth
13 Rotorua
14 North Canterbury
15 Counties Manukau
16 Waikato Gold
Girls
1 Canterbury
2 North Harbour
3 Counties Manukau
4 Hawke’s Bay
5 Waikato
6 Nelson
7 Waitakere City
8 Rotorua
9 Auckland
10 North Canterbury
11 Mid Canterbury
12 Wellington
13 Hutt Valley
14 Porirua
15 Hibiscus Coast
16 Thames Valley
