After the festive season and the bad weather, teams of the U14's lancashire Basketball Association has once again met at St Peter Centre to battle out for the monthly Central Venue League Tournament.
A team from Darwen Vale High School, put together thanks to the dedication of PE teacher Steve Broderick, has joined Preston Pride, Blackpool Lights, Rossendale, Bolton and Burnley.
First match saw Blackpool taking on Bolton in an hard fought game where at the end Bolton prevailed 52-41.
Rossendale stepped on court next against Blackpool and again a very close game that saw Rossendale winning at the end by 5 points, 36-31.
Next on court was Preston Pride with a very depleated squad against Bolton.
Until the last quarter everything was in the balance but Bolton snached a victory 39-38 at the end.
Burnley, hosting the tournament once again, was playing next against Rossendale.
After the first quarter Burnley was trailing by a couple of points but the second five impressed coach Giulio Minozzi and outscored the opponents during the second quarter.
Third and fourth quarter saw Burnley cruising away and final score saw Burnley winning 41-24.
The newcomers Darwen Vale were on court next against Preston Pride.
Darwen Vale since the off had the better hand against Preston, showing a very mature and entertaining basketball.
The match saw a newly created team destroying an experienced opponents.
Final score saw Darwen Vale enphatically winning 71-20 against Preston.
Last match of the day was Burnley against Darwen Vale.
The first quarter was very competitve and really good to watch with Darwen Vale finishing just 3 points ahead.
The second quarter saw the Blackburn team outscoring the hosts and from then on Darwen Vale just cruised to the final wistle.
Final score Darwen Vale 52 - Burnley 15.
Burnley U14's coach and organiser of the tournament Giulio Minozzi commented "Darwen Vale has showed to everyone that high school sport can work. As Chairman of the Lancashire Basketball Association and part of the coaching staff at Burnley, I have to congratulate Steve Broderick and his team of teachers to come here and demonstrate to everyone in lancashire how sport will need to be in a very near future.
Students at Darwen Vale train every day before school, at lunch time and sometimes after school.
If we want as a nation to produce high performance athletes in every sport, we need to embrace this concept where we are offering quality, quantity, affordable and convenient sport coaching to young athletes that want to play.
Burnley Basketball Club has been trying to do this in our town for more than 4 years since the idea of building the super schools, we had approached the council and sport development in order to use one of the super school every day to play basketball, so far nothing has come up".
Darwen Vale, in a space of few months, has started and developed a new team and they are able to come at the CVL and wipe the floor against established teams and players that have been training, in a couple of cases, for several years.
Once again a very successfull story at Darwen Vale and I hope that all clubs in Lancashire will be able to have the same opportunity collaborating with local authorities and Sport Development agencies.
Giulio Minozzi
