ISAZ National Basketball Tournament

On Friday, we went to Lusaka, ISL for the nationals as we qualified 3rd in the regionals. It was a very long and tiring trip, but we got there on time. Our first game was against Mpelembe, we played that team 3 times in the past and that boosted our confidence quite a bit [because we had won all three]. It was our warm up game as we just got off the bus, and we won that game 20-6.

Diana taking the ball up

 Our second game was against Lake Road, a midlands team. We hadn’t played any midlands team yet so we were nervous about that game. We went into the game focused and motivated to win it. We did win it with teamwork and plenty of effort (20-7). What I saw the girls do on court was smile and stay positive, they smiled even when the opposite team were quite negative about everything. The girls didn’t let the opposing team’s negative attitude bring them down. That was a really good game and encouraged quite a few of us.
 The third game we played was against ISL, the home team. They were quite a good team, got most of their points by doing layups. In that game, I saw that our team’s defence got stronger and was better in this game than in any other game. We put up a fight, but this was our third game and we were getting tired. We eventually lost that game 20-8.

Josiah in control

 Winning the two games, we got into the semi finals! It was against Ibex Hill, another midlands team. We were exhausted, but we tried to stay focused. We lost that game, but I thought we could have played better against that team. They scored the first few baskets which “switched us off” as a team. Other than that, I think the team had the potential to win against them.

Amano v Ibex Hill

 Since we lost that game, we played for the 3rd/4th position, and it was against Banani. It was our last game, and it was a fairly close game too. Three of the players got injured, which brought us down. We ended up losing that game 10-11.
Overall, we placed 4th out of 8 schools in girls basketball. We played well as a team for that tournament, and grew closer together as well. It was a good season of basketball.

Reported by: Janki Desai