Durban — Pietermaritzburg school St Charles College (SCC) were recently crowned the 2023 St John’s Basketball Tournament champions.
They defeated Johannesburg’s St David’s Marist Inanda 40-36 in the under-19 final. Nineteen schools took part in the tournament hosted by St John’s College in Johannesburg. The tournament consisted of the under-15 and under-19 sections.
In the under-19 section, KwaZulu-Natal was represented by eventual winners St Charles College, Kearsney College, Michaelhouse, Clifton College and Northwood.
St Charles coach Darren Holcomb said the Saints were keen to repeat last year’s performance, where they shared the title with Pretoria’s St Alban’s College due to inclement weather, and prove that they are one of the premier basketball teams in the country.
“Having won the Independent Schools Stayers Tournament en route to a 27-game win streak, the boys from SCC were extremely confident as the summer season commenced, however, there were some unexpected snags as the team lost to Northwood during the regular season and Michaelhouse in the Jenny Orchard Invitational Tournament final,” said Holcomb.
He said despite the setbacks, they were still confident that they had the skills and team chemistry required to win the St John’s tournament.
St Charles opened the pool stage with wins over Johannesburg’s St Peter’s College and Clifton College before their first defeat to St David’s.
Holcomb said this left the Saints in a precarious position as they took on their final pool opponent, St Stithians, who had previously beaten St David’s. The only way for SCC to make it out of the pool was a victory by eight points that would see the Saints go through in second place on points difference – a win by 19 points would send them through in first place.
“With this in mind, the Saints blitzed the St Stithians team, playing tough man-to-man defence. This led to a 20-0 run to start the game and the team from Pietermaritzburg never looked back, winning the encounter by 24 points,” said Holcomb.
The knockout stages saw St Charles College beating Johannesburg’s Sacred Heart College in the quarter-finals and then fellow KZN side Kearsney College in the semi-finals. This left the team with a finals clash against St David’s, who beat them earlier. It was an opportunity for SCC to avenge their only loss in the tournament.
After an end-to-end encounter, the Saints managed to defend three attempts to tie the game before securing a rebound. After a St David’s foul, SCC captain Luke Hubble knocked down a single free throw, making it a four-point game and with it securing the championship.
Holcomb said, “To say that the team was overjoyed with their back-to-back title wins would be an understatement. This win helps cement this team, and the individual players, as one of the best in recent history. For the senior players it is the exclamation mark behind what has been an outstanding two years of basketball.”
Hubble said that winning the championship was a high for the team.
“We had high expectations coming into this tournament after an extremely successful season. These expectations add pressure to the team and we were very excited that we were able to deliver on what we expected,” said the 17-year-old.
“The low of the tournament was losing to St David’s in the pool section of the competition. We did not play as we had hoped and lost a game we felt we should have won. This put a lot of pressure on us to ultimately make it out of the pool and into the knockout stages of the competition. But we had a good win against St Stithians and ultimately finished top of our pool.”
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