Eight students represented WFC in the annual basketball tournament hosted by Enfield College.
Leading up to the event we had held trials at Forest Road YMCA and were, to be perfectly honest, rather disappointed with the turn out. Fortunately, of those who did attend, we had a rich mix of talent and were reasonably confident of making a good showing of ourselves.
The format for the tournament meant that the nine Colleges present were pooled into three groups of three. The league phase was played over 1 period of 10mins, rolling clock.
Our first game was against B6 Brookhouse who play out of Hackney. The early exchanges were, as expected, fraught with turnovers and missed opportunities as both sides tried to settle. B6 were first to get into their rhythm and took up a 9-2 lead on 5mins.
However we didn’t panic and with some good accurate passing from Michael and Andrius and some excellent aggressive defence from Mamomi (“Golde”), we cut into the deficit and with 1min of the game left trailed by 15-12.
Iain then picked up the ball on halfway and we all felt assured that we could keep our hopes alive, even though time was running out. But as he made a desperate attempt to drive towards the basketball he was alleged to have fouled the opposition centre and we turned the ball over with only 15secs remaining on the clock.
Playing a full court press, all players dug in, to deny Brookhouse time and space. Under this pressure their number 10 misplaced an easy lay-up and Seb Pardo rebounded the ball deep in his own half. Dribbling up to just in side halfway and, with the clock showing 1sec, Seb released a shot which flew straight into the basket for three miraculous points………..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!
After some celebration involving the majority of those present we went into 1min of overtime and managed to hold off Brookhouse, finally winning the game 17pts to 15pts. A very enjoyable and some would say memorable game.
Our second contest was against Carshalton College and it was clear from the “tip” that we had the upper hand on offence and defence. Michael used his physical attributes to dominate the boards and collect a nine point personal tally.
Javin, Malik and Jeffrey also had strong contributions and we ended the game victorious wining 17pts to 10pts.
Two from two and we were through to the semi finals against Sir George Monoux College.
The last four matches were scheduled for two 7min periods but as the tournament had overrun officials were forced to reduce game times down to a one period of eight minutes.
SGM had been the form side of the tournament showing fluid and well drilled patterns of play during their two qualifying games. We were not intimidated with what we had seen and started confidently matching scores early on. But as the game developed their experience showed and we ended up going down 20pts – 12pts.
A very promising start for WFC Basketball Team, well done lads.
The players:
Andrius and Iain (ESOL New Start), Javin and Malik (Intermediate Business + ICT), Jeffrey (Btec National Sports), Michael (Btec 1st Diploma Sport) and Captain Mamomi (Access to Buisness).
If you are interested in playing competitive basketball for the College please contact Mark Jarvis – Sports & Student Activities Manager: mjarvis@waltham.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8501 8173
Leading up to the event we had held trials at Forest Road YMCA and were, to be perfectly honest, rather disappointed with the turn out. Fortunately, of those who did attend, we had a rich mix of talent and were reasonably confident of making a good showing of ourselves.
The format for the tournament meant that the nine Colleges present were pooled into three groups of three. The league phase was played over 1 period of 10mins, rolling clock.
Our first game was against B6 Brookhouse who play out of Hackney. The early exchanges were, as expected, fraught with turnovers and missed opportunities as both sides tried to settle. B6 were first to get into their rhythm and took up a 9-2 lead on 5mins.
However we didn’t panic and with some good accurate passing from Michael and Andrius and some excellent aggressive defence from Mamomi (“Golde”), we cut into the deficit and with 1min of the game left trailed by 15-12.Iain then picked up the ball on halfway and we all felt assured that we could keep our hopes alive, even though time was running out. But as he made a desperate attempt to drive towards the basketball he was alleged to have fouled the opposition centre and we turned the ball over with only 15secs remaining on the clock.
Playing a full court press, all players dug in, to deny Brookhouse time and space. Under this pressure their number 10 misplaced an easy lay-up and Seb Pardo rebounded the ball deep in his own half. Dribbling up to just in side halfway and, with the clock showing 1sec, Seb released a shot which flew straight into the basket for three miraculous points………..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!
After some celebration involving the majority of those present we went into 1min of overtime and managed to hold off Brookhouse, finally winning the game 17pts to 15pts. A very enjoyable and some would say memorable game.
Our second contest was against Carshalton College and it was clear from the “tip” that we had the upper hand on offence and defence. Michael used his physical attributes to dominate the boards and collect a nine point personal tally.
Javin, Malik and Jeffrey also had strong contributions and we ended the game victorious wining 17pts to 10pts.
Two from two and we were through to the semi finals against Sir George Monoux College.
The last four matches were scheduled for two 7min periods but as the tournament had overrun officials were forced to reduce game times down to a one period of eight minutes.
SGM had been the form side of the tournament showing fluid and well drilled patterns of play during their two qualifying games. We were not intimidated with what we had seen and started confidently matching scores early on. But as the game developed their experience showed and we ended up going down 20pts – 12pts.
A very promising start for WFC Basketball Team, well done lads.The players:
Andrius and Iain (ESOL New Start), Javin and Malik (Intermediate Business + ICT), Jeffrey (Btec National Sports), Michael (Btec 1st Diploma Sport) and Captain Mamomi (Access to Buisness).
If you are interested in playing competitive basketball for the College please contact Mark Jarvis – Sports & Student Activities Manager: mjarvis@waltham.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8501 8173
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