St. Benedicts College recorded its first ever triumph at the Kearsney College’s Independent Stayers Basketball tournament over the long-weekend, defeating the highly decorated Maritzburg College in the final on Monday.
The sport of basketball is on a steady rise in the African continent and South Africa is no different.
Kearsney College hosted its Basketball Competition last weekend, where the country’s top-schools gathered inland of the Kwazulu-Natal province with hopes of emerging with the prized silverware.
The tournament stretched over a four-day period where eight teams progressed to the playoffs that were scheduled to take place on the final day of the tournament.
Hosts Kearsney College, St Albans College, St Stithians College, Maritzburg College, St Benedicts College, Michaelhouse, St David’s Marist and St John’s College all made it to the playoffs.
The hopes of reaching a home semi-final were crashed by the visiting St Stithians College as Kearsney fell short in the quarter-final with the scorecard reading 46-34 in favour of the visitors.
St Stithians College were the obvious favourites from the start of the tournament but when they faced Maritzburg College in the semi-final, they succumbed to a 42-38 defeat.
On the other hand, St. Benedicts College were making a name for themselves as the tournament progressed after going into the competition as clear underdogs and dark horses.
Having fought their way into the playoffs, St Benedicts made light work of St. Johns College in the quarter-finals beating them 42-39, before going on to thrash St. David’s Marist by a whooping 47-20 score-line.
With the final scheduled on the same day as the quarter-finals and semi-finals, there was very little time for Maritzburg College and St Benedicts College to regroup but the two teams were able to dig deep and produced a closely competed final.
Eventually, the underdogs St Benedicts College walked away victorious with the scoreboard reading 55-43 in their favour.
All the Results:
GROUP STAGE
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PLAY-OFFS
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