Large victories were the feature on a successful day for the four New Zealand teams in action overseas on Monday.
On Day 1 of the 2017 Fiba Under 17 Oceania Championships New Zealand Men were far too strong for Tahiti winning 106-36. The Women also won by a ton defeating hosts Guam 139-34.
Harbour forward Keeley Tini, Canterbury guard Amiee Book and Wellingtonian Lawrin Tipene each scored 20 points for the Women. All 12 players featured in the points column on the stats sheet as coach Jody Cameron experimented with various combinations.
Men’s coach Miles Pearce split the minutes pretty evenly amongst his 12 players with all playing between 13 and 19 minutes.
Cantabrian guard Max de Geest led the way with 21 points and 10 rebounds; Tom Higgins had 14 points/9 rebounds with another three players scoring 9 points – Matt O’Connell, Kruz Perrott-Hunt and Cooper Boyce-Towler.
Over in Perth the NZ Under 16 Boys made it three from three with an emphatic 96-63 victory against WA Country at the Australian state Championships.
Reihana Maxwell-Topia vacuumed up 20 rebounds to go with 8 points whilst fellow Harbour player Harry Payne led all scorers with 19 points.
The Boys have enjoyed an average 28+ points differential in their three wins to date – Payne averaging 21 points per outing. He was joined in double figures on Monday by Mac Stodart (16pts), Sam Jenkins (16pts) and Ezrah Vaigafa (15pts/10 assists).
Having suffered two defeats on the first two days the Under 16 Girls, led by double digit contributions rom Emme Shearer, Waiata Jennings, Jazz Kailahi-Fulu and Caitlin O’Connell secured a much needed win beating WA Country 91-58.
Jess Moors led the rebounding count with 11 and Jennings the assists category with 7.
LACEY LOWDOWN 