RI 48-42 Christchurch

Before today's match, Jaycen reminded us that all four teams in our group has a chance of qualifying for the second round. Mentally ready, coach explained to us what were their weaknesses and our game plan, which was to secure the rebounds and run fast break, and play a box and 1 to total deny their star offensive player number 11.

Playing without our captain, we had a fairly bad start, trailing 5-12 at the start of the first quarter, and the rather fresh no. 11 was making strong and fast cuts through, getting the ball a number of times. We ran into a little foul trouble at the start, with a number of us getting a few fouls early.

Second quarter we fought back, securing rebounds and came to a close fight of 18-19 by the second half. We switched players on number 11, and he only scored 2 points throughout the entire quarter and tiring out. However, we were unable to draw fouls from many times we tried to finish under the basket, and missed a few shots. The third quarter, we ran the fast break many many times, scoring 17-7, with strong drives from a few plays and finishing. We pulled apart to a point lead, 35-26.

However, we performed super badly for the fourth quarter. We were rushing too much on our fast breaks and had bad finishing. We also almost went back to doing the risky passes that almost killed us in the Ngee Ann game. The last few minutes Christchurch hit a couple of free throws to bring the lead to only 6 points, ending the game 48-42.

And that concludes the risky first round! After many scares and hard fighting, we advanced to the second round as group champions. Come back for training tomorrow and we're ready to take on the second round, where the matches will be much fiercer and tougher, and we will just have to be ready for it when the time comes.

RI BBALL C DIV'09

Rebounds win championships!