Bartholomew Eynsham 33 St. Clare's 55
Body The boys' basketball team secured another victory in the Oxfordshire Schools league defeating Bartholomews, Eynsham, 55 - 33. Coach Franky Marulanda describes the action. St. Clare's travelled to face Bartholomew School with 6 players. So from the very beginning we had to be careful and not find ourselves in any kind of foul trouble. The boys started well taking a 6-0 lead within the first few minutes thanks to Ivan, Jan and Hao, but Bartholomew school had 2 big players who were giving our boys a hard time under the hoop and they managed to even the game 8-8 at the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter St. Clare's offensive movement was creating the space in the key and the ball was reaching the right player, but Bartholomew's big men thought that it would be best to foul than to allow the buckets. 7 free throws were taken by St. Clare's and all missed; on the other hand, Bartholomew took advantage of their size and obvious restraint from St. Clare's (no foul trouble) outscoring the visitors 12-4. The half ended 20-14 to Bartholomew. Coach regrouped the team and made some simple changes to the defensive strategy by playing a 2-3 half court zone with side traps. Michal Wisnielski and Emilis Romaskevicius did an incredible job in keeping the big men under control. Bartholomew did not know what hit them and St. Clare's outscored them 21-4 in the third quarter as Andreas Buechl, Jan Philip Mertens, Hao Ni and Ivan Kochetkov gave the away team a commanding 38-24 lead. The Bartholomew basketball hall, which was full of cheers and high fives in the second quarter, had been silenced by a relentless and disciplined St. Clare's team. The last quarter was very much the same, with St. Clare's scoring at will and, as the lead grew, they relaxed and Bartholomew was allowed to score a few hoops. St. Clare's won 55-33. Scorers: #4 Hao (Curtis) Ni 17 Pts#8 Andreas Buechl 12 Pts
#14 Jan Philip Mertens 12 Pts
#23 Ivan Kochetkov 10 Pts
#10 Emilis Romaskevicius 2 Pts A great comeback! January