18 teams battled it out on the basketball court in Timaru during the recent SISS Zone 4 tournament.

The team knew it would be a tough ask, but it went into this competition with the attitude of learning and gaining experience, building for next year's tournament. With some top NZ coaches and players taking part in this tournament, it was great to be able to experience some of their success stories and test ourselves against them.

Every day the team developed the correct attitude and perfected their basketball skills, with the prime team goal being to try keep the score margin under 40 points. This meant that as a team we had to refine our skills and improve every game - both individually and as a team. Roncalli B was commended by other coaches and referees on how we developed, especially in the teams defensive efforts. The highlight of the tournament for us was in the last game against Roncalli A. Coming in as the underdogs, the team ended up leading by 5 points after the end of the 1st quarter, and only 2 points down by halftime. However foul trouble and fatigue proved an insurmountable barrier meaning we ended up going down with the final score being 36-54.

With the girls encountering various defeats over the duration of the tournament due to extremely skilled teams, we knew we had to stay positive.  As a whole, the team learned how to be disciplined and got the opportunity to play against some of the top South Island junior basketball talent. We also experienced 4 x 10 minute quarters with the addition of added 24 second shot clock pressure. As a result of this, the games varied in length, sometimes lasting 75+ minutes and testing our endurance; certainly different from the Friday Night Secondary Schools Basketball Competition where there is only 40 minutes on the clock !

Thank you to Jacinda Kelly, Diane Van Diepen and support crew for assisting during the tournament.