Premier A Basketball at Regionals
In pool play, the Prem A beat Heretaunga College 125 - 76, St Pat's Town 87 - 69 and Scot's College 83 - 49 to qualify top of their pool.
In the cross over game they beat New Plymouth Boys' 82 - 57, but in doing so Taine Evans fractured his hand, Jacob Collis fractured his elbow and Kade Muru sprained his ankle. This seriously depleted the squad as Kobe Chapman also broke his leg in the first game of the tournament. Under usual circumstances, the Prem A would have been confident of putting in a solid performance against Napier, but with only 7 fit players, it was always going to be a huge challenge. In the end, Napier were too strong and PNBHS lost the semi final 82 - 92. In the 3rd / 4th play off against St Pat's Town, Mikaera Marsh injured himself in the warm up, so the team only had 6 players.
In an extraordinary game, the Prem A were down 0 - 13 and looking likely to receive a good old fashioned hiding, but the team dug deep, down by 10 at 1/4 time. They clawed back to 38 - 38 at half time. St Pat's rested their starters for much of the second quarter and it is usual to play the starters at the start of the third quarter so PNBHS were expecting them to come out strong in the third quarter. Fortunately, PNBHS defensively were too strong. PNBHS won the third quarter 26 - 7 and went on to win 79 - 53 to finish third at the Zone 3 Regional Tournament. Kopere Tanoa and Xzavia Mason top scored with 22 points and Jake McKinlay scored 17 points.
Although it would have been nice to have a full squad for the semi final and the final, the real goal of Regionals is to qualify for Nationals and the Prem A did that. They also showed excellent character in fronting up in difficult circumstances.
