James Hargest Girls open with two wins

James Hargest College Girls earned a direct berth to the quarter finals with two wins on the opening day of action at the New Zealand Region 4 AA Secondary Schools tournament, being hosted by Southland Basketball at ILT Stadium Southland this week.

Southland Boys High bounced back strongly from an earlier loss to Otago Boys High to defeat St Andrew's, coming back from a nine-point deficit at halftime to claim and impressive victory while James Hargest Boys and Southland Girls High both found the going tough with two losses to open the tournament.

But the story was James Hargest Girls. After wiping the floor to the tune of 89-25 against Nelson College for Girls in their opening afternoon clash the team backed up against Rangiora High in the final round of the day.

Locking in on defence, Hargest was able to work their way out to a comfortable lead early before Rangiora closed the game up in the third, to at one point trail by only a point. The locals were able to dig in and push the lead back out to double figures and showed great composure down the stretch to close out a win 79-72 that sees it take the direct route to the quarter finals against the winner of Waimea College v Craighead Diocesan School at 5:45pm on Thursday.

Southland Boys High also showed great character in their second game of the day. After falling to Otago Boys High School in the early afternoon 110-84, Boys High found themselves down by nine at halftime against St Andrew's before a 28 to 6 run in the third gave them a lead they would never look like giving up.

Meanwhile James Hargest Boys dropped their two games to Rangiora High (78-55) and Kaiapoi High (94-64) while Southland Girls also suffered two losses to Middleton Grange (58-34) and Kaiapoi High (98-43).

Day Two action starts at 9:00am with a continuation of Boys' Pool play and the Girls' Preliminary Quarterfinals and Quarterfinals.