McCARTHY Catholic College has enjoyed another golden Combined Catholic Colleges Junior Basketball Championships, with the 7/8 boys crowned champions.
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The Paul Hobson-coached side beat Edmund Rice College Wollongong in the final by 18 points to go one better than they did last year.
They dropped just one game for the championships – the fourth of their six pool games – and only went down by a point.
“It put us into a situation where in the last game we had to beat a team (Marcellin College, Randwick) that was undefeated to guarantee ourselves a chance of going through to the semi-finals,” Hobson said.
“We played probably our best game of the pools in that game and ended up winning by more than double figures.”
It was enough for them to finish top in their pool and set up a semi-final match-up with St Xaviers High School Albury.
“We won that by two points,” Hobson said.
The Albury side had at least four players who had repped at Country level, and were tough to get over.
Hobson said they were “just ahead” most of the game but there was no more than six points in it.
“It was always in the balance,” he said.
“Even in the last seconds they had some shots.
“We were lucky enough to hang on.”
Illawarra is one of the strongest regions in NSW so, going into the final, they were expecting a tough game.
And it was.
“It wasn’t that one-sided,” Hobson said.
“As the game went on we looked better and better.”
“They also had some key players in foul trouble.”
That was credit to the McCarthy defence.
“We just kept going and frustrated them,” Hobson said.
“Defensively we were strong and didn’t let them get going.”
It was a big effort.
The final was their sixth game of the day and they’d had to travel 40 minutes from Windsor where they played their first two – the first at 8am – back to Penrith for their final round game and the finals.
Hobson said they brought them together to play in the local Tamworth competition midway through the year and about six weeks ago put them up a division to the 9/10 boys.
“That gave them that little bit more toughness,” he said.
The boys’ win follows the girls’ 7/8 success last year.
“We’ve got a good group of basketballers at our school,” teacher Matt Feltrin said.
He said it was great for the boys after winning silver last year to back up and take the gold.
About half of the side were part of both.
McCarthy also took down a 7/8 girls’ team and 9/10 boys and girls.
They missed the finals but only lost a game or two in their pool games.