City retained the ‘Battle of the Bridge’ Trophy at St Kentigern College on Friday night with a 127-105 victory against their Shore rivals.
The free scoring tone was set in the opening quarter as the two teams threw down a combined 67 points – unfortunately for the Shore, City amassed 42 of them. Connor Ngan (six threes on the night) and Levick Kerr asserted early dominance with 13 points apiece in the frenetic start.
Christian Martin, Zach Riley, Taine Murray and Sean Murphy, on his way to a game high 36 points, redressed the balance in the second but City were sitting pretty – 72-56 ahead at half-time.
Any chance of Shore narrowing the gap in the third was snuffed out by Luka Vea and Dontae Russo-Nance.
Murphy continued his scoring ways but Theo Coker-Grey and Dakota Stephens put the exclamation marks on the win.
In front of a good sized crowd, and playing 12 minute quarters, the game was a fitting way to end Auckland Secondary Schools Boy’s Premier basketball for 2020.
City 127 – Ngan 23, Russo-Nance 23, Vea 20, Kerr 17, Coker-Grey 12, Alex McNaught 11, Caleb Langdon 6, Sataan Tawera 6, Stephens 5, Kazlo Evans 4
Shore 105 – Murphy 36, Riley 18, Martin 13, Jett Thompson 10, Murray 9, Zeke Priest 6, Lucas Payne 5, Ethan Skelton 4, Josh Kooiman 2, Cian Emery 2
The Shore boys were able to turn the tables in the Junior game defeating City 73-67. Westlake’s Hamza Zahran led all scorers with 23 points.
It looked like another City win at three-quarter time as they were ahead 58-53 but held to just 11 points in the final ten minutes Shore charged home – threes in the final minutes from Zahran, Malachi Book and Jimmy Kim snatching momentum.
Harri Coker-Grey (18 points) and George Turner (11 points) were prominent for City.
Shore 73 – Zahran 23, Book 11, Michael Ropotini 10, Elyas Taher 8, Kim 7
City 67 – Coker-Grey 18, Turner 11, Noah Martin 9, Kade Cartwright 7
LACEY LOWDOWN 