Basketball Nationals U19

On Friday the 12^th of October, Amano U19 boys went to Lusaka for the nationals tournament, which was taking place on the next day at American International School Of Lusaka (AISL).

Our first game was against Horizon the champions of midlands region. We had to do all we could and give it all if we were going to win. But, in the first half we were down by a bit of a margin and in the second half we made mistakes like bad passes and going in wrong positions, so we ended up losing 39 to 5

Our second game was against Baobab, a different team so we had to go into this game with a different mentality and not think about our previous game. In the first half we played really well, much better than the previous game although we were down by 1 point by half time. In second half we started slacking off and gave them 2 easy baskets and so we ended up losing again with a score of 15 to 4.

Our third and final group game was against Lechwe, which we really wanted to win, and went into this game strong. In the first half we kept the game really close and tight and so we were tied. In the second half we started strong as well but near the end of the game we made mistakes and gave them 2 easy baskets and so we lost that game 18 to 14.

So that meant that we had to play Ndola Trust for a game which would decide the 7^th and 8^th place. Even though we lost all our previous matches we still entered this game like it was our first. First half we gave it all we had and were tied by then. In the second half we fought till the end and had plenty of chances but we just couldn’t make them count. But they had some chances and took them and they ended up winning 14 to 8.

Overall we played really well and gave it our all; we had a different experience and in the future we'll try and even improve and do better. I would like to thank Mr Jarrett and Mr Kapalaula for the coaching they gave to us, Mr George for driving us and God for giving us safe travels there, seeing us through the day and then bringing us back safely.

Report by Chandalala Kondolo