January 14, 2025 02:21pm
15 months after returning to Paignton Academy, Mr. Rodgers is again helping to develop fantastic performances by Paignton students on the basketball court. 18 years ago, Paignton, coached by Mr. Rodgers, were cruelly denied the National Championship on a tie breaker, decided after the event in a finals weekend in Nottingham. In 2025, this Year 11 team will progress to the South Zonal round of the competition, hoping to go one better.
The Southwest Championships were decided over a 2-day event of two teams each from Devon, Cornwall, and Wiltshire.
Paignton flew out of the traps on day 1 and comfortably won their first game by 13, 61v48 against Beaminster (Wiltshire). This was a relaxed game with the full squad contributing good minutes and the scoring distributed evenly with 4 players scoring in double figures, Olly 17, Sam 16, Leo 11, Jack 11. Unfortunately, near the end starting point, guard, Olly P, took a knock that would prevent him from starting game two.
Without Olly’s calming presence pulling the strings, game two proved more challenging. Woodroffe (Wiltshire) led from the start and Paignton’s challenge became even tougher when two other starters, Sam P and Jack P, both had to be helped off the court due to injury. By the second half Paignton had managed to get level, as the boys gritted in and hustled for every loose ball. No more than Ethan R who got elevated to starter during the tournament due to his consistent and infectious tenacity he showed throughout the 2-day event. The critical moment occurred in the 4th quarter, when Olly, now back on, managed to score back-to-back 3 pointers to create our first substantial lead of the game. This also broke Woodroffe’s spirit and the team was able to see out the game 60v48. Sam P led the scoring with 26, while Olly P also managed 16 despite not starting.
Game three was soon up in an arduous first day. The boys had won two games but the toll of playing the games had left them gassed and with 3 starters struggling with fitness. Playing Treviglas (Cornwall), a team that had beaten Paignton by over a combined 50 points in the home and away fixtures last year, things soon got worse as Leo W, a 4th starter also pulled up with injury. In all, at different points in the game, Olly P, Sam P, Jack P and Leo all had to be helped off court, but all asked to go back on to fight for the win. Sol G really stood up in this game, after feeling lost in game one and two, his 7 points here, and all-round assured play, were vital in keeping the team in touching distance. Treviglas had been cruising most of the game, leading by an average of 10 points through the first three quarters, so in a last throw of the dice, coach asked the team to summon up unknown strength and energy, to play a full press for 3 minutes, an energy sapping approach that involves 100% energy and focus by all, for every split second for it to work. Somehow energy was found, and it worked perfectly as within 3 minutes the game was tied, the team needed to go back to a more traditional defence now and hope they could hold on. Hold on they did and with Sam P scoring from the free throw line with 12 seconds left, and then the team defending resolutely to not allow a shot to be taken won Game 3, 47v44. Sam gutted it out to lead again with 20, with Sol next up on 7, and Olly dropping to 2 as injuries really started to affect play.
A new day and the two biggest challenges left. Certainly, the tallest challenges with both teams sporting athletic 6’5 players in their teams.
First up Penryn (Cornwall). Given the size advantage Penryn enjoyed, it would be difficult to win playing a passive defence, so the idea was to start with a high energy press, try to frustrate them and break their spirit, and then relax a bit later in the game. Paignton’s defence was outstanding and we quickly went up by 6 before Penryn even took a shot. However, Penryn are an experienced basketball powerhouse, and they were not going to be easily broken. Although the defence remained outstanding throughout, Paignton were unable to capitalise on enough of the turnovers they created to break the game open as they were stuttering on offence and becoming a bit one dimensional, making it easier in turn for Penryn to stage their own defence, and preventing the team from ever feeling comfortable. The team never trailed, unlike day one, and although it was never comfortable managed to hold on to win 53v48. Outstanding defence by all but Ethan R, Leo W and Sam P especially created so many turnovers from the opposition it was hard to keep count. Sam led scoring again with 22, with five others all scoring at least 4 points.
Four from four but standing in Paignton’s way was St Luke’s, a 3 headed monster from Exeter, who had just demolished all comers, winning three of their other games by more than the winning margin of all Paignton’s margins combined, 4 wins +33, one St Luke’s games +54! They had 3 “Sam’s” to our 1. It was just not a fair contest.
Team was taken down to W5 for some last-minute tactics, with new one of a kind defensive formations drawn up (never before used in 36 years of basketball), motivational team talks – “no matter how bad it gets just don’t give up”, “coach has won from 23 points down before, never give up, just keep going”.
Then something bizarre happened. Straight from tip, their 6’5 Centre placed the ball perfectly over our Paignton’s players heads for another of their star players to take a comfortable 2-point lead two seconds into the game. But it did not happen, the tip was perfectly placed, their star power forward did receive the ball with nothing but the basketball in front of him, but not one but 2 Paignton players got back and knocked the ball out of his hands. That was the story of the game there and then. St Luke’s star three continually got the ball in good positions but were then set upon by a pack of Paignton Panthers continually clawing and harassing the opposition and allowing not a second’s rest. A team more used to scoring 26 in a quarter were restricted to 6 in the first quarter and Paignton were leading this machine of a team. Again, scoring was not coming easy, and too much was being funneled through Sam and his drives to the basket, but he did respond with a career high 36, although the lack of balance restricted the offense. All through the game you waited for the beast of St Luke’s to escape Paignton’s trap defence and storm to victory, but it was not coming………. or was it.
With less than a minute to play and Paignton winning by 7, Paignton drained the clock down then missed a shot and St Luke’s scored, then St Luke’s stole the inbound and scored again, now it was only 3 in it and surely time was up, the game went on Paignton missed and St Luke’s scored a 3 pointer to tie the game, only for the refs to then realise the clock had malfunctioned, we had played about 30 seconds extra, but it is what it is and the game was tied. Mr. Rodgers thought the grinch had stolen Christmas!
St Luke’s started overtime by taking their first lead of the game and starting to look like the team that had driven fear into all those that had come before them. Not the Year 11 Paignton boys however, they lifted themselves off the floor one last time and just kept on fighting to a phenomenal 57v54 win and with it the U16 Southwest Basketball Title.
A massive, massive, massive thanks need to be given to all those at Torbay Tigers, without whom there is no way we could have staged the two days of tournaments and got our students ready to play.
For anyone interested in getting involved in basketball in any way in the bay please check out their website torbaytigers.com or email torbaytigers@aol.com.
