Girls' basketball team in the 2012 County Final

St Clare's travelled to the European School in Culham, (Current U19 Girls School Champions) and defeated them 63 - 25 in the Oxfordshire Schools league.

On arrival, the players could hear the loud music coming from their gym, the crowd cheering and clapping for their team and the nerves began to play tricks on the St Clare's team's mind. Coach Marulanda gathered the team outside the gym and explained that the most important thing during the game was to enjoy the moment, the time shared as a team, "once the game is finished, it will be part of the past, maybe you will not be able to play another game together, so enjoy and treasure this time." He said, “Go with the music and dance to it as you warm up, in a few minutes this will be just background noise and once we start playing it will be silence, they will not be able to handle us, not today".

The team got together and did just that. The game started and within 2 minutes St Clare's were up 8-0. The St Clare's defensive power and aggressive stance was too much for European School, which managed to score their first points in the last minute of the quarter. Mia dominated the inside of the paint, Marija, Lena F, Lena H and Karina did not even let them go past the half way line, it was a great display of how to play individual and team defence, which gave St Clare's an offensive advantage. Q1 finished 18-2 to St. Clare's.

In Q2, St Clare's changed the defence to allow European School to play a little bit, but it only confused them even more. St Clare's played 4 different defences which they changed at will, giving ES different looks without allowing them to settle at all. By the half St Clare's were up 31-10 and for all intent and purposes the game was over. It was clear that St Clare's superior game play was not to be matched by ES.

The game finished 63-25 to St Clare's which will take them to the Finals for the second year in a row.

Game MVP: Mia Kraus 38 pts

Scorers:
Lena Fuldauer: 10 pts
Marija Gvozdenovic: 8 pts
Natalie Ranft: 5 pts
Karina Todorova: 2 pts
Play of the game: Lena Fuldauer 3pt shot!

Match report by Franky Marulanda

March