2 Great Sixth Form Basketball Teams!

There are two great sixth form basketball teams in Merseyside, Childwall and Childwall reserves.

The next generation of Childwall players had their first chance to play without the safety net of our outstanding (and national champions) year 13 team last night against the traditional powerhouse of Buecoat.

Keen to impress from the start Childwall set out to play an uptempo style of basketball we are trying to brand as our trademark.

These things take time.....

An opening salvo of from Lewis Hart and Joseph Akoto steadied things however at times it felt like we were running in treacle. Bluecoat came back with 4 points of their own to level the score at 4-4. The next 5 minutes took forever as we just couldnt seem to retain possession and carelessly gave the ball away again and again, then a 7-2 burst saw us 11-5 up and Tom Regan (he's the 6'10 kid if you havent met him yet, you will have seen him) put his first basket of the game in. Bluecoat put in the last 3 points to make the score 11-9 Childwall.

The seond period was a different story and Childwall showed why we are a basketball academy with some strong rebounding play from Lewi Hart and some penetration work from Biruk Lule the first four minutes of the quarter had us up with a 10-2 run to lead 23-11, Bluecoat tried to break it up with some clever play of their own but we were too strong for them and finished the quarter with a 3 point shot from the half way line by Jordan Cook to lead 36-21.

Although the third quarter would be played out 13-8 to us it should be noted Bluecoat were only allowed 2 points in open play an scored their other 6 from the foul shot line as we get to grips with learning how to play aggressive defence without fouling. A quarter also to be noted were we played all 12 of our players and some experiencing their first significant amount of court time.

Ok back to the starting players and we are listening to the messages and finding our confidence now a 13-3 run in the first 3 minutes that ended all hope of Bluecoat getting back into the game and letting our less experienced players the opportunity to play. Another 8-0 run with 6 points from Tom Regan and we were up 68-35 and in total control now as we relaxed into a ryhthm not experienced before by this team, the boys had finally started to understand some key principles of the game and retained possession really well. the game finished with a 3 point play by Anthony Schooler and Childwall left the building victors 76-43.

Next match Bluecoat U18 at home on Monday.

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