Year 7 and 8 basket ball teams from Marshland High School competed in the Junior NBA Eastern Region Finals last week – here’s how they got on.
The two teams headed to the University of Essex on Wednesday, May 15 after qualifying from what started out as 30 schools; the West Walton school was in the final four.
Overall, the year 7 team finished second and the year 8s came fourth in the whole of the eastern region.
In the first game Marshland's year 7s played Copleston from Ipswich who are renowned for producing excellent basketball teams.
This was a fantastic game, Marshland were trailing early on but by half time were 6 points up and it stayed that way until two minutes to go when they scored two quick baskets to make the game 25-23.
Two time outs were called with 30 seconds and 10 seconds to go to discuss tactics and the team held on to win this great match and qualify for the conference finals, the final buzzer sparked mass celebrations from everyone involved.
During the lunch break there was a shooting completion which Marshland's Grantas Domkus won the year 7s competition and Arnas Urbans came second in the year 8 competition.
In the overall final Marshland came up against a team from Luton who were much stronger, taller and quicker than them, they were an unbelievable team at this age.
Their transition from defence to offence was so fast which caught the team on the fast break on numerous occasions and they had a 6ft power forward who dominated the rebounds.
However the team never gave up and did really well against this challenging team, scoring some nice baskets along the way.
In the Eastern final Marshland took on Westley from Bury St Edmonds and came up against a high level team, with an England school boy and a number of highly talented girls who play for regional squads.
The team found it very tough against a team who put them under lots of pressure, however they kept working throughout a grew during the game.
Marshland then took on another extremely good team from Braintree, they were extremely technical and scored early points and again put the team under pressure.
Marshland's year 8s worked hard throughout and will have learnt a lot from playing against such strong oppositions.
Dom Stannard, coach, said: "What an amazing day to round off an outstanding season for Marshland High School, I am so proud of all the players.
"This was a special opportunity for our students to play at a fantastic venue again such strong opposition, they will have learnt so much.
"To finish second and forth in the whole of the East is an incredible achievement. Thanks to year 10 and 11 students, Marcus Holt, Ant Siguardson, Alfie Kirk, Tyler Holt and Aidan Cook for their help with running the younger teams.
"Additionally thank you to Mitch Embling from Kings Lynn Basketball club for his support, hopefully lots of our players will go onto represent his club."
Additional / match reporting: Dominic Stannard
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