West Coast rivals Buller High School and Greymouth High School locked horns in ‘A’ Girls play on Day 2 at the 2019 Schick Secondary Schools National Championships on Tuesday afternoon.
Buller, ‘A’ National champions in 2010 and 2014, got one over on their local rivals at the Schick Premierships ‘A’ South Island Qualifiers last month, winning the game 75-40.
However, Greymouth Coach Cameron Birchfield was confident his team would put up a stronger challenge in Palmerston North.
“We didn’t have our full team at the qualifying tournament, and they smashed us.
“It should be a good game and I will be keen to see how we match up with a full contingent of players.
“We beat them narrowly in another game but that was played with a running clock,” Birchfield said.
Finding suitable competition is certainly a challenge for those schools located in rural communities such as Greymouth.
There only significant schools competition has been the ‘A’ Qualifiers which were held in Greymouth.
“We play in the local adult league and we actually won the A Grade Women’s league in Greymouth this year.
“This is the first time we have been to Nationals for four years. This year is a test the water year, we want to experience the environment, get used to the faster speed of the game and playing against bigger players.
“We will work on stuff we have learnt this time and aim to qualify and come back again next year.”
Playing numbers are also an issue for Birchfield.
“We had eight players turn up for a trial at the start of the year – congratulations you are in the team I said!
“We drafted in two junior players, so the team has come a long way since then.”
Finding suitable competition is a challenge echoed by Buller coach Rebecca Miller.
“We split into two teams in the local Buller League, there are only four teams and we make up two so we don’t dominate but that makes it tricky when you are trying to practice as a team.
“We went to 3×3 earlier in the year which was a good start to the season. It is nice that basketball has so many tournaments to go to because that’s what the girls enjoy.
“It’s a long way to travel but it’s worth coming up even just to watch the other teams.
“We seem to be quite good at basketball although there is something in the water that keeps the Buller kids really short,” Miller said with a smile.
“Having said that, we always have a good bunch of girls coming through who want to keep playing.
“It’s like the old grudge match Greymouth against Buller, each team likes to beat the other.
“We beat them at Premierships, but they beat us at West Coast Schools, so this game is a bit of a decider, they have a few handy players so it should be a good game.”
On the court, a free-flowing competitive game was eventually won 63-53 by Buller.
A dozen first-half points from guard Tessa Syron helped Buller to a 30-21 advantage at the interval. When they scored the first seven points of the second half it appeared as if Buller would cruise to victory and at 41-31 ahead at the three-quarter they were certainly in control.
However, Greymouth guard Ruby Roberts, on her way to an impressive 27 points, scored six unanswered points and when she found Ella Rae-Wood (13 points) for an open layup her team were suddenly 43-42 ahead.
Coach Miller wisely called a timeout from which her team responded positively. Hazel Clementson (17 points) made a couple of baskets and a neat reverse layup from athletic forward Sala Skinner (13 points) put Greymouth ahead 52-45 with under five minutes to play.
Skinner dominated the closing minutes as Buller claimed the win and bragging rights on the West Coast.
TOURNAMENT INFORMATION
The draw, pools and future live stream timings can be found here.
LIVE STREAM
Four games are being live streamed every day on the Fly Palmy Arena court. These can be watched on either our website or Facebook page.
ONLINE RESULTS
Results from today’s fixtures will be updated after each round and can be found at the link below.
‘A’ Tournament Dates: September 30 – October 3 – click here
‘AA’ Tournament Dates: September 30 – October 5 – click here
TICKET PRICES
Daily Pass
- $5 Adults per day (18 years and older)
- $3 Child per day (all children 14 years and younger must be accompanied by an adult)
- $15 Family per day (two adults and two children)
- FREE 5 years and under
Weekly Pass
- $20 Adult weekly pass
- $15 Child weekly pass
- $52 Family weekly pass (two adults and two children)
For more go to www.nz.basketball and Basketball New Zealand’s social media channels: @BasketballNZ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
