The Henley College won their first knockout game of the Under 19 Dynamik Schools competition on Wednesday afternoon as they beat Alleyns School by 71 points to 64 thanks to Adam Marzec’s 23 points.
Having finished second in South Pool 4, The Henley College faced Alleyns School in their first cross group game at home but it was the visitors to Henley that started the game on the front foot as they raced into an 8-0 lead before the home team pegged back Alleyns to tie the game at 13 a-piece with two minutes to go in the quarter. It was the away side that finished the opening ten minutes in front as they led 17-18 going into the second period.
The game remained very nip and tuck us neither team were able to get a foothold in the game. The home team did open up a five point advantage with 90 seconds remaining in the half only for Alleyns to finish with a 6-0 and hold the narrowest of advantages going into the half time interval at 32-33.
Henley came out in the second half looking much more poised and playing with better intent but were struggling to shake of an incredibly resilient team as Alleyns fell just slightly behind at the end of third quarter thanks to Henley’s 21 points to 18 as the home team led 53-51 going into the final ten minutes.
It was the visitors who started the final stanza in good fashion scoring the opening two baskets to lead 53-55 which advanced to 60-62 with two and a half minutes remaining. But with the home team finding their rhythm, an 11-2 run to finish the contest ensured a really hard fought victory 71-64 and progress through to the last 16 of the competition where they will face Richard Huish College.
Henley Head Coach Ben Fisher was pleased to see his team come through a tough contest and was very complimentary of their opponents. He said,
“We didn’t play particularly well in parts of the game today and that is something we can work on in practice as it highlighted a number of areas for us to be better in but I am really happy for the team that they had the resilience and tenacity to grind out the win. A lot of credit must go to our opponents, they did a great job with their game plan and gave us multiple problems to contend with so to come out with the victory was particularly impressive for us especially in this knockout stage of the competition.”
Henley will travel to Taunton in the next two weeks with an opportunity to reach the last eight of the Dynamik School Under 19 Men’s competition.
