28 October 2023
While cricket matches were rained out around KZN on Saturday, Maritzburg College and Clifton fitted in a full schedule of basketball matches, with the two 1st teams producing an entertaining clash in the Alan Paton Hall.
Clifton held their own in the early going, but a brilliant second quarter, in which College forced turnover after turnover, and then hit shot after shot, from lay-ups to three-pointers, broke open the game. They were clinical.
If there has been one weakness on show in the College 1st team’s make-up this season, it has been their finishing, which has, at times, been wayward. They have, though, been defined by their harassing defence. On Saturday, when they combined that defensive excellence with some pinpoint shooting in the second stanza, they became an irresistible force.
Clifton’s wholehearted effort
The match ended 88-47 in favour of the red, black and white, but the margin of victory doesn’t do justice to Clifton’s wholehearted effort, which saw them finish strongly despite the outcome already being decided.
Even though they were well out of it, Clifton kept taking it to College, but the hosts would have been a problem for any opposition on Saturday. Nonetheless, dropping 47 points on College is no mean feat. Not many have managed that this season. It’s just that the home team, in their home venue, backed by loud home support, were in a rich vein of form, and that meant they were not going to be stopped.
Clifton, though, have looked like a very competitive outfit in the fourth term. Over the past two years, there has been a clear-cut evolution of the 1st team, and there is plenty they should take away from the game against College, one of the country’s top teams.
A clean sheet
Through the age groups, College enjoyed a clean sheet of victories over the Durban boys, with the Clifton under-14 C side coming up only three points shy of their College counterparts, and the under-16 B team going down by eight. Mostly, though, Maritzburg won comfortably.
RESULTS
1st: Maritzburg College 88-47 Clifton
2nd: Maritzburg College 56-22 Clifton
3rd: Maritzburg College 64-9 Clifton
4th: Maritzburg College 29-17 Hilton
16A: Maritzburg College 57-21 Clifton
16B: Maritzburg College 31-23 Clifton
16C: Maritzburg College 63-3 Clifton
16D: Maritzburg College 18-37 Hilton
15A: Maritzburg College 56-14 Clifton
15B: Maritzburg College 50-2 Clifton
15C: Maritzburg College 55-27 Clifton
15E: Maritzburg College 23-14 Hilton
14A: Maritzburg College 36-18 Clifton
14B: Maritzburg College 43-7 Clifton
14C: Maritzburg College 20-17 Clifton
14D: Maritzburg College 57-7 Clifton
14E: Maritzburg College 16-50 Scottsville
14F: Maritzburg College 10-34 Scottsville
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