The Canterbury High School Boys Under 19 basketball team have reached the semi-final stages of the British Colleges Elite National Cup.  They reached the semi-finals with a comprehensive 69-43 victory away to Truro College in Cornwall. Having defeated Brighton and Hove in the previous round, Canterbury were drawn away to Truro for the quarterfinals.Despite the 320 mile trip, Canterbury started the game sharply and took the lead straight off the tip.  It turned out to be a lead they would never relinquish.  The opening minutes of the game saw Canterbury take complete control at the defensive end as Truro struggled to get a quality look at the basket, let alone score.  After 7 minutes Truro had managed only a single foul shot while Canterbury had already scored 15 points.  Truro finally managed their first basket of the game late in the quarter, but Canterbury still led 18-5 at the end of the first.

Truro started the second quarter more positively and quickly cut the lead to 9.  However a 3 pointer by Rob Vassie started a 12-0 run for Canterbury as they stretched the lead to 30-9.  Near the end of the half Truro were able to slow Canterbury down slightly and they were able to close the gap to 15 points, 34-19 at half time.

The second half started in a similar fashion to the first with Canterbury going on a 13-4 run, as they ran the lead up to 24 points.  Truro made a brief recovery late in the quarter to cut the lead to 49-29 going into the final quarter.

Any ideas Truro had of a comeback were soon ended as Vassie hit 3 consecutive 3 pointers as part of a 17-6 run that pushed the lead beyond 30 and effectively ended the game.  Canterbury were able to pull all of their starters down the stretch and cruised home to the victory.

Head Coach Jesse Sazant was particularly impressed with the Crusaders approach to the game saying, “The professionalism and focus the players showed throughout the trip and the game were exceptional.  From the second they stepped on the floor they were focused on what they had to do.  This focus really paid off on the defensive end where we did a really solid job stopping them from doing the things they wanted to do.”

The two main differences in the victory were Canterbury’s defensive intensity and their outside shooting.  Canterbury hit 10 3 point shots with 5 different players making at least one while Truro didn’t manage a single 3 pointer. Vassie top scored on the day with 18 points (all on 3 pointers), followed by Kalil Irving (11), Disraeli Lufadeju (10), Andy Chiguri (8) and Tom Humphrey (8).Canterbury now progresses to the Final Four as the winner of the South section.  They will be joined by the winners from the London, Midlands and North sections.  The semi-finals and finals will all be held at Wildcats Arena in Nottingham in March.The school is also currently top of the British Colleges Elite South East league and undefeated in the England Schools and Kent Cup competitions.  Overall they have a record of 12-1 this year.The Elite Basketball Academy at The Canterbury High School is run in partnership with Medway Park Crusaders.  Most of the academy players play for the Crusaders U18 premier national league team with 6 of them in the Crusaders’ men’s national league squad.  The Crusaders also run a high performance academy at the school for 11-16 year olds.

There will be an open evening for talented basketball players interested in joining the academy for next year in March.  If you are interested please contact Academy Manager Jesse Sazant on jsazant@canterbury.kent.sch.uk or 01227 463971

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under General Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.