Dear Mrs Kerr-Dineen,

I am writing to you with my match report for the Under 16 Basketball team against Kings School on 28th of September.

The beginning of our basketball term was extremely positive as Oundle were able to narrowly beat Kings by 2 points, the final score being 39-37. Oundle began the quarter with a clear lack of experience as a team. This is because our players are training in different squads as per our ability. Thus the Oundle U16 team has had little practise together as a group and so in the first quarter we were down by 5 points. The break gave us time to regroup and we then played more as a united team. Oundle was able to score many easy layups from fast breaks or overwhelming them with our offense. With defence Oundle struggled to adapt to the foul calls and so gave away many defensive fouls sending them to the free throw line due to the Team fouls rule. Luckily they were unable to connect with many free throws and we learnt how to stop their drives to the hoop especially in the last quarter. In the second half of the game Oundle began to amass points lead by Connor Wu’s scoring ability. Oundle was able to draw with them by the end of the third quarter. Unfortunately, in the beginning of the last quarter we slowed down as a team and lost momentum but by the end with real determination and team spirit Oundle was able to score many points in the final minutes, draw many fouls and win. I am especially pleased with Ayiko Dradri’ s ability to switch from marking quick defenders to big defenders and he is rewarded with a place in the First team this weekend. Also I was exceptionally happy with Timmy Whyte’s ability to stop drives without fouling the opposition.

As this was our first match, I am extremely happy with the teams effort and concentration throughout the team to do their best. I am sure we will be able to progress throughout the term and hope to play more games against other schools.

Sincerely,

Daniil Umanskiy