This year Cowles Stadium, Christchurch, played host to the Schick Southern Basketball Cup where 12 teams, including Kaiapoi High School, did their best to out-shoot, outsmart, out-muscle and out-hustle the opposing teams to claim the glory.

Who would have thought that putting a 10-inch ball through an 18-inch hoop 10 feet in the air could be so difficult?

Unfortunately for us, the rock didn’t fall our way, losing all three of our games in pool play by narrow margins.

Although leading or neck and neck for the majority of each game, we could not hold on and the back end of the fourth quarter became our curse, losing to Shirley Boys by 12, Christ's College by 5 and Riccarton by only 4 points.

Stand out players included Jay Garrick, Ryan Sangster and Sam Anderson, however Alex Taylor and Josh Anderson also deserve a mention for stepping up in the ranks and contributing formidably on the floor at both ends of the court.

A huge thanks to Coach Alan Dvorak for his time, patience, wisdom and energy in nurturing these boys and helping to grow our basketball programme at KHS.

Although it was not the end to the season that we would have hoped for, and are more than capable of achieving, I’m sure the boys will return with a renewed passion and hunger for the game in 2020.