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St Kevin’s College basketball came agonisingly close to their first national title in a decade.
The boys top V side were runners up at the Basketball New Zealand A national secondary schools tournament in Palmerston North last week.
The ‘‘A’’ tournament is for secondary schools that have a roll fewer than 300 students in years 9-13 for a single-sex school, or fewer than 600 for a co-ed school.
Despite going down to Te Aroha College 87-63 in the final, St Kevin’s coach Jacob Fowler could not have been more proud of his team.
“We went up there trying to achieve something like that so it was pretty cool to get to that stage of the tournament.
“It’s hard to reflect on — you get to that game and you want to win it and then you don’t. It’s a hard one to wrestle with but I’m definitely proud of the position the boys put themselves in and for us to get to that stage.”
It was their first final appearance since 2019 when they also finished runners-up, with their last title coming in 2016.
Fowler loved their defensive effort and the “unselfish style that the boys had started to play”.
“You go through and look at all the scorecards, you had different guys stepping up in each game and I think everyone scored in the last game and everyone scored in the semifinal.
“There was just depth across the board and everyone was contributing.”
This was their third straight appearance at the event.
“It’s just been really cool to see what happens when you get a group of boys together and you take them through the ranks and that’s something we’re trending towards.”
The tournament was a perfect send off for their four year 13s — Wade Smith, Kenton Tokai, Carlos Suyat and Flynn Sanford.
Quinn Selfe had a particularly impressive tournament and was named in the all star five.
“I’ve been coaching Quinn for five or six years and that was definitely some of the best basketball I’ve seen him play,” Fowler said.
“He really stood up in this tournament, being someone that initiated our offence, he was one that set the pace that we played at.
“Quinn does a lot of things on the court well and it was cool to see everything click.”
Fowler and the team appreciated all the support from the Waitaki community as they progressed through the tournament.
“The community got around the boys when it came to got to that stage — plenty of messages coming through — so it’s cool to see that there’s some recognition.”