By David Nagel
The Berwick College Basketball Academy has proved a match for any program in the nation after walking away with four medals from the recent Australian Schools National Basketball Tournament.
Berwick claimed its first ever gold medal in the elite division-one competition, defeating a star-studded Doncaster outfit, 59-47, in a highly entertaining Under-15 Boys grand final.
Berwick almost made it a clean sweep of the division-one crowns with the Girls’ team finishing runner-up to an outstanding Maribyrnong Sports Academy – losing 67-36 in the grand final. A further silver medal to the Boys division-two team, and a bronze medal performance from the division-two Girls rounded out a tournament full of accomplishment – with six teams representing the school with pride.
Assistant Basketball Academy Coach Gerard Leonard said the players would gain great experience from playing against some of the best junior basketballers in the country.
“Overall the tournament was to give all players involved the opportunity to play against top opposition from all around Australia,” Leonard said.
“The Basketball Academy at Berwick College feels that this opportunity for the players gives them an idea of where they are at, in terms of their development and how hard they need to work to get to the highest level individually and collectively as a team.
“Well done to all teams over the course of the week who represented the school and community very well.”
The gold medal performance from the boys was particularly impressive, having to overcome a Doncaster team full of representative players who inflicted a two-point loss over Berwick in the early stages of the tournament.
But the team regrouped and came out firing in the gold medal match, opening up an early first-quarter lead and never looking back. Doncaster made a late run in the final quarter but Callum McNiff and Lachlan Auhl made sure the run would be short lived. McNiff finished 34 points, Auhl 11 points and Isaac Silver seven. McNiff and Silver were in the top 10 scorers for the tournament with 21 and 19 points per game respectively.
The Girls division-one team lost its first round game in the tournament but regrouped and finished second at the end of the round games.
They came up against a highly skilled Maribyrnong team, filled with talent and Vic representative players, and it was always going to be a tough task. The girls were put under pressure from the start with the opposition playing a strong full court press defence.
“The girls will learn a lot from the game and now know what they need to do to get to the next level in their development,” Leonard said.
The girls eventually went down 67-36 with Kelly Cousins top scoring with nine points and Charlotte Dabb chiming in with six.
