The Henley College secured their first win in the Basketball England Under 19 Men’s league on Monday with a 90 to 53 victory over New College Swindon.
As a college, we currently provide opportunities through the elite sports programme in three sports - Rugby Union, Rowing and Basketball. Recently our Basketball team had an exceptional performance, being coached by Reading Rockets own, Ben Fisher. As an Elite Sports student at The Henley College, you’ll follow a bespoke performance programme, incorporating all aspects of technical and tactical coaching alongside physical conditioning and support. You will also have the opportunity to compete at the highest level of College Sport through our extensive fixtures and competition programme.
Henley opened the game quite tentatively with New College taking an early 7-2 lead. Midway through the first quarter Henley got back into the game with a 9-2 run and ended finishing the opening period ahead by the narrowest of margins, 13-12.
The second quarter remained nip and tuck as both teams struggled to get a foothold in the game but some good three point shooting from Manus Leidi towards the end of the stanza ensured the South Oxfordshire team would go into the half time break with a seven point advantage, 36-29.
It was the visitors that started the third quarter the brightest but an 11-2 burst by Henley opened the game as they poured in 27 points to New College’s 16 to take control and lead the game 63-45 heading into the final quarter.
Henley really showed their dominance in the last period as they scored another 27 points (54 for the half) whilst restricting their opponents to just eight points, their best defensive display of the game which meant they ran out comfortable winners by 90 points to 53 to go 1-1 in the league after last week’s heavy defeat to JMA.
Henley Coach Ben Fisher was really pleased to see his team’s performance, especially in the second half. He said,
“We started the game quite slowly and we were not playing with good enough intent or committing to our actions so that set us back a bit but once the wheels got in motion and we re-aligned ourselves, we showed how we can play. I was particularly impressed with how we kept up our intensity throughout the game, especially in the second half and I feel we demonstrated a true reflection of ourselves in the fourth quarter which allowed us to have a very positive performance and in turn result.
Ben Sher led all scorers in the game with 29 points, Kai Hope and Adam Marzec had 18 a-piece, and Manus Leidi finished with 14.
Henley are back in action next week when they welcome Winchester College on Thursday 5th December.
Please visit our Elite Sports Programme page to discover more what The Henley college sports scheme can offer you!!
