Next Weekend's Action
	Monday 27th January 2003

County Under 14 Boys and Girls are triumphant in Midland’s Inter Association Tournaments but “Moulton” go down again.

Last weekend was a national teams training weekend but the Northamptonshire Under 14 Boys and Girls played in a Midlands Inter Association Tournament while Northants “Moulton” took on Waltham Forest “Spitfires” in the National Men’s Under 20 League

National Under 20 Men’s League (South)

Waltham Forest “Spitfires”     78 - 71   Northants “Moulton”

The students of Moulton College Centre for Basketball are still looking for their first win of 2003 but came mighty close to beating high flying Waltham Forest “Spitfires” last Saturday. Despite trailing by as many as ten points in the second half “Moulton” tied the scores at 71 all with just three minutes of the match remaining thanks to a Leon Grant jump shot. In the remaining three minutes “Moulton” not only failed to score but missed an unopposed lay up, missed two free throws, and were guilty of turning the ball over under their own basket to virtually hand victory to the grateful “Spitfires”.

Moulton made an excellent start to the game leaping out to a 14-6 lead by efficiently running their half court offences and playing tenacious defence but in doing so their leading rebounder Rudi Perrin picked up three fouls in six minutes, and coach, John Collins had to sit him out for the next fourteen minutes of the game. During that time the “Spitfires” were able to use their substantial height advantage to take a 38-31 half time lead.

By the end of the third period that lead had been narrowed to 61-58 and at 71 all “Moulton” knew the game was theirs for the taking before they were guilty of committing those fatal errors. Their cause wasn’t helped by the loss of Perrin and Joe Forde with five fouls and John Collins wasn’t very happy with the fact that the game had been officiated by just one referee. He commented, “Overall, the referee did an excellent job considering he was by himself but with a game played at high pace he was bound to miss a lot. Unfortunately for us in the last couple of minutes he missed a ball being dropped out of bounds, one of our players being pushed out of bounds and a blatant end line travel. This is the third time we’ve been to London and only one referee has turned up. In Northamptonshire we guarantee two referees but obviously different rules apply in the capital.”

In the seven point defeat Carl Rowland scored 22 points and he was well supported by Leon Grant and Joe Forde with 17 and 16 points respectively but no other “Moulotn” player was able to get into double figures.

Under 14 Boys Inter Association Tournament

Birmingham     26 -56    Northants

Shropshire       22 - 67    Northants

The county boys qualified for the knock-out stage of the competition thanks to two comfortable wins although they did trail 11-10 after the first quarter of their match against Birmingham. They were also relieved to see the Midlanders miss no less than fifteen free throws in the game.

Coach, Tony Stewart was well pleased with an excellent team performance and made particular mention of the contribution of David Evans (Bishop Stopford School, Kettering).

Under 14 Girls Tournament

Northants       53 - 20   Shropshire

Birmingham   17 - 67  Northants

The county girls hardly had to break sweat in progressing to the knock out stages of the competition after recording two very easy victories. The ease of victory clearly illustrated the value of playing in the National Passerelle League with the Northants girls displaying the ability to play as a team something the other two teams just couldn’t match.

In an impressive team performance the individual play of Hannah Scott-Evans (Northampton School for Girls) particularly caught the eye.

For further information contact:

Karen Goodrich (Administrator)
07702 263813

John Collins (Coaching Co-ordinator)
07801 533151