Mairehau shows sting in its basketball tail

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32976, 24 July 1972, Page 14

Mairehau shows sting in its basketball tail

Thera wa» a »mil« en the face of the prominent men's basketball coach (Mr K. E, Williams) on Saturday afternoon. His team, Mairehau High School, showed that it Still had a formidable sting in its tail when It defeated Deep Freeze, 65-56, in the A grade Canterbury Inter-dub competition.

Success has not come often for Mairehau in this, its first season of A grade competition. But it played with rousing determination against the American servicemen to score its second win. Unfortunately. it still remains on the bottom of the ranking list and does not seem destined to improve on this. Mairehau, must, nevertheless now have greater confidence in Its ability to do well at the New Zealand secondary schools* championship final, to be played in Wellington on August 11. 12 and 13.

In the only other A grade game played, Checkers narrowly survived a strong challenge from High School Old Boys to win, 68-65. On several occasions, Old Boys seemed poised for an upset victory but each time made Checkers’ recovery easier by needlessly loosing possession. The game between Y.M.C.A. and University was deferred. Y.M.C.A. was in Wellington representing the Canterbury area in the New Zealand club championship. Points are: Y.M.C.A. 24, Checkers 22. Old Boys 10. University 10. Deep Freeze 6. Mairehau Rousing finish The elash between Mairehau and Deep Freeze promised to be an entertaining encounter and in this respect the spectators were not disappointed. It was not until the final two minutes that Mairehau put the issue beyond doubt.

Before that, the Deep Freeze team was in with a good chanee and on occasion had the measure of its less - experienced opponent. In the first half, Mairehau got down to business very quickly and with eight minutes gone was leading, 20-10. However, its offensive thrust came to a halt and six minutes later scores were level at 24-all. Making good use of its greater experience and height under the boards. Deep Freeze edged ahead and at half-time led. 33-27. Mairehau began the second spell with great determination and within three minutes had made un th* deficiency and taken the lead. But Deen Freeze had no intention of resigning meeklv from the contest and from that noint there —nothing between the sides With three minu»»s to go s'-ores were levet at s*-alt. hut the fast pare maintained bv Mairehau was beginning to tell on the servicemen. They wilted badly In *he vital last minutes and Mairehau was right on top when the final whistle b’ew

D. Green again played a grand offensive game for Mairehau and was never better than in one-on-

one situations. Paul Daigneauit and J. McDowell also played well. K. Westfall was a tower of strength for Deep Freeze in the centre, retrieving rebounds and shooting accurately under pressure close to the board. G Phillips was in grand shooting form. In one vital period in the the first spell he sank 12 points.

Uphill struggle Although holding second place In the competition, Checkers looked anything but invincible he o,l h » y me t O!d Boys - Had the Old Boys players made more effort to halt Checkers’ set shooting from outside the keyhole and reduced their handling errors they would probably have won. Checkers’ former New Zealand representative, J. R. Fairweather was strangely off target with his shooting and they had to work very hard for their points. In the first half, the lead changed “J?,®. 9 *U ,t when break 31?8 ‘ 01d E ° yS were “head, When play resumed, Old Boys ere ,.^F st to score but Checkers fought back and with six minutes gone they were in front, 44-43. Old Boys missed some vital free throws and allowed Checkers too much freedom outside the keyhole but with three minutes to go the scores were level at 62-all. In the final minutes of play’, Checkers made better use of the b £ u , T. h< ; y » h owed a maturity about their play missing earlier in the game and calmly sank thcee baskets to win narrowly e Tras f w ?£ not in the starting five for Checkers but when he was sent on in the first spell he Proved verv effective. Later J” £ le eame - 6. Nobbs began to 'L er y da «Xerous with his teeth frOrn . th '‘ top of the controlled plav sensrtbly in mld-courf and it was ??r. e through his efforts in setting un nlav and finishing off moves that his team got its winning edge.

B :, Goodwi n- who spent much of rhe game in the centre, also nlaved a valuable role in his teams victory. He rebounded strong!'- and sank some excellent jump shots f’-om -well out when team needed points most. _,jhc outstanding figure in the Old Boys team was, bv far, the eatrtain. K. Luxtnn. Not a tall nlayer by basketball standards he never hesitated to take on "Igger- opponents in rebound situations and very often succeeded in coming awav with pog . session of the bah. His defence w-as excellent and his positional olav fault. Without hi< control ’n the guard-line. O’H Boys would never ha'-e been ah’s to oresent such a *hr“at to Checkers. T. Guthrie, his mid-court, part. V l ’,', sad, F nfr forln - had »he ban constantly stolen off n’-n and ve-» of'« n out of tone wi th the hatmenln-s around h-rn. This was '•omnletelv of character for he is norhighest calibre. There were times when

he looked like his old self—he scored a number of good baskets —but there were not enough of them to provide Old Boys with a winning advantage. The team’s centre, S. Ferguson, was rather lethargic, too. He played well in offensive situations and was an obvious danger to the Checkers defence when he was close to the basket but he did not move as wall as he is able to and was slow getting back on defence. D. Cameron, who has generally been Ferguson’s understudy this season, played in the forward line with considerable success.