With the OAs currently holding victory of the last two of this annual fixture, this year’s AGS basketball academy team looked to upset this standing record and take a win back. Before the match started, the OAs needed an extra player, so in his last ever OA match, Coach Lee McCarthy went over to the OA side, who now had two big men on their side, with Tom Edwards returning for the OAs. The coach-less AGS team now had to pull in together and work as a team, using all their combined experience and knowledge to devise a strategy to beat the OAs. Knowing the difference in height and fitness between the teams, the smaller AGS team had planned to outrun the taller, older OA team, expecting in the later quarters the difference in fitness to show.
The AGS team started off well with a few quick buckets, but the OAs also traded back some as well, keeping the game close. After a few minutes into the game, the OAs fitness level showed immediately as they sat in a zone defence for most of the game. Noticing this, AGS called a quick timeout to regroup and figure out how to approach this. They had managed to score a few more after the timeout, but the OAs were still able to maintain the score, and by the end of the 1^st quarter, OAs were leading by a few points. In the 2^nd quarter, AGS had tough luck scoring as many of their shots wouldn’t go in. Because of these misses, the OAs started to get easy fastbreaks on AGS as they ran ahead of them, anticipating a miss, to get easy points down the other end and by halftime, the OAs had increased their lead much further. AGS started the next half with a quick three and seemed like the start of a run, but this was cut very short as soon, later in the 3^rd quarter, we witnessed a sudden shooting showcase from Ben Geddes who made about four threes in a row, drastically increasing the OAs lead. To the disappointment of AGS, the OAs had come out with a blowout win this year, winning this fixture three years in a row. The experience of the OAs was too much for the younger AGS team and the presence of big men Tom Edwards and Coach McCarthy made it difficult for AGS to score inside, leading to this loss.
Despite the loss, in appreciation of Coach Lee McCarthy’s last year at AGS, the OAs put together a collage of photos from all the years he has been at AGS as a token for him to remember his time at AGS. As well as the departure of Coach McCarthy, this was the last ever AGS fixture of the Year 13s as they head off to university; Aalim Shamsideen, Tan Chinzowu, Kym Ibragimov and Ollie Mulchay. As well from Year 11, Luke Parry will be leaving AGS and attending another sixth-form and Joslyn McLeod will be taking his basketball talents to Southampton playing for an EABL league team. Lastly, just a thank you to the OA players for taking their time to come down to play this fixture and thanks to Coach McCarthy for all the years of basketball you have done for us. This year’s team are the last to fully appreciate how much you have done for basketball and to keep it a relevant sport at AGS and we wish you all the best that is to come.