Young basketballers up with the play

Marlborough Basketball’s junior ranks are going from strength to strength if the annual South Island Primary Tournament held recently in Rangiora is anything to go by.

Gifford bags bronze medal at prestigious sailing event in US

Former Marlborough sailor Alastair Gifford continues to make waves on the international scene.

Recently the 23-year-old competed as part of the thirdplaced New Zealand team at the prestigious 58th Congressional Cup regatta, the opening event of the 2023 World Match Racing Tour, a global professional sailing series.

Often referred to as the gateway to America’s Cup, many notable skippers have cut their teeth on the Congressional Cup, including Dennis Conner, Dean Barker, James Spithill and Paul Cayard.

From April 18-22, Alastair teamed up in a Catalina 37 with skipper Nick Egnot-Johnson, Zak Merton, Sam Barnett, Alex Higby and Bradly McLaughlin to follow in their footsteps.

The Kiwi crew were highly competitive throughout, pick- ing up a coveted bronze medal among the 10 crews who had qualified for the Long Beach Yacht Club showpiece. The competition comprises a double round robin — during which each of the teams race one another twice. After that the leaders advance into semi-finals and petit finals. Egnot-Johnson’s crew had slipped into the semis in a tiebreaker with Swiss sailor Eric Monnin. They lost to Denmark’s Jeppe Borch in the round of four but secured bronze against GBR’s Ian Williams in the petit final with two straight wins, prompting Egnot-Johnson to declare, “What an amazing feeling it is to make it on the podium … we are so stoked to be here”.

Immediately prior to the Con gressional Cup Alastair com peted in the Ficker Cup, as part of fellow Kiwi Megan Thom son’s crew. They required a top two placing to qualify for the Congressional Cup event and achieved that, coming second.

Alastair then moved to Egnot-Johnson’s crew for the WMRT event, in which Thomson’s crew finished seventh.

The Congressional Cup was won by highly-rated American Chris Poole’s crew, sailing undefeated across five days of competition, an unprecedented achievement.

Now back in England, Alastair is preparing for the 2023 season.

His schedule involves sailing with the team La Pericolosa in the Cape 31 series, involving 31-foot high-performance keelboats. He is also testing and preparing for the RORC Offshore Series with a team

The South Island Primary Tournament (SIPT) has been hosted by North Canterbury Basketball for 30 years and is a highlight of the junior calendar.

This year five Marlborough year 7&8 teams headed south – the majority of whom were first-timers at the tournament.

The open grade sees entries from some very strong Canterbury club sides and as the majority of the Marlborough players were new to the tournament, Marlborough entered three evenly-matched boys’ teams and two evenly-matched girls’ sides in the development grades. This resulted in all the teams getting close, competitive games, with each team drawing another Marlborough side at least once, which made for some exciting local matchups.

The boys’ development grade had 16 teams entered and all three of the Marlborough teams finished in the top eight with the Marlborough Rockets and the Marlborough Astros team meeting in the third/ fourth play-off. After a close encounter the Astros pulled away to win 61-55. Stand-out performances of the game came from Dylan Gifford (Astros) with 34 points and Jack Wickens (Rockets) with 26 points.

The girls’ development teams played superbly all tournament with the Marlborough Bulls, coached by Marlborough Basketball’s Farishta Peterson-Ihaka, bringing home the winners’ trophy. The two Marlborough teams met in the semi-final, so the Marlborough Jets had to be content with playing off for third and fourth place, a game which they won on the court right beside the Bulls, so both teams were able to celebrate together.

This group of players now turn their attention to under-13 representative trials in May.