School in top basketball

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 24

School in top basketball

The Mairehau High School team has been included in the A grade men’s basketball competition which will begin on April 15. It is the first school team in Christchurch to be admitted to the grade. Coached by the former Otago and Nelson representative, Mr K. E. Williams, the team won the B grade last season for the first time. Only four of the teams in ’ last season's A grade competition remain — Checkers, High School Old Boys, Uni-

versity and Y.M.C.A. — and the Canterbury Men’s Basketball Association has decided to eliminate the bye and restrict the grade to six teams. This leaves one vacancy and there are three teams under consideration — Rex, Deep Freeze-Wigram and a team representing the Canterbury Malaysian Singapore Students’ Association. Rex and Deep Freeze-Wig-ram, a team largely comprising United States servicemen based at Harewood, will meet on Friday morning in the first of a series of grading games.

The winner of this game will probably be matched against the Malaysian students on April 8. However, the outcome of this threeway competition will not necessarily decide which team gets the final place. Grading games are scheduled for April 8 and all teams will take part. The Mairehau school team will, for example, be asked to prove its ability by playing one of last year’s top teams. “It wouldn’t be fair if we just decided the grades with a stroke of the pen,” the convener of the competitions

committee (Mr M. Reynolds) said yesterday. The three teams which have dropped out-of A grade are Burnham, Old Maroons : and Rangiora. Of the three, only Rangiora will contest the. A reserve grade which will be played this season with full-length games for the first time. The supplementary compe- ' tition, normally played when the representative team is out 1 of town, has been abandoned. Championship games will . continue whether teams are i weakened by the require- . ments of the representative i team or not.