23rd November 2014 at Graveney School

Report by Mark Paxton

The thirds headed out to Graveney School in Tooting to face Bec Youth. It’s always a bit tricky to find this sports hall but, on this occasion, the major issue was a massive rainwater lake between the car park and the sports hall.  Let’s just say that Hannah got her feet very wet and has stated she would like the gentlemen in the club to carry her over such obstacles in future!

Anyway…

Bec Youth are (a) young and (b) very promising. The first half was a defensive battle with our height giving us an advantage but their front defence causing us a lot of problems. One division passed the ball around well but didn’t create too many chances while the other division passed less well but managed to get more shots up. At half time, it was 2-2.

Eiti had some magic words at half-time and we managed to get ourselves flowing a bit more in the second half. I got one under the basket, Peter scored a penalty while John managed to get goal side of his player for another couple. Either Peter or Hannah also scored (sorry…can’t remember who!). We managed to get 7-5 up and I thought we could hang on. However, Bec went up a gear and suddenly our shots were bouncing out rather than going in. That Graveney hall has always had a dodgy patch of gravity that tends to hang over one of the baskets. Bec scored the next four and we couldn’t find a way to respond. So it ended 9-7 to Bec Youth.

So that’s the first defeat of the season for the thirds but that was our first game against an LKA 2A side (the top seeded teams) rather than an LKA 2B one.  Very sporting game though so well done to both sides…it was definitely played in the right spirit.

Girls
Hannah Tapsell(1), Francesca Grave, Femke de Jong, Cat Evans

Boys
Peter Blair (2), Joep Moritz, John Coughlan (2), Mark Paxton (2)