MACKILLOP College had hoped for a top six result at the Australian Schools Championships in Melbourne last week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They exceeded that with a fourth-place finish after falling to a 74-63 defeat in the bronze medal match to Box Hill Senior Secondary College on Friday.
Their year 9/10 boys team finished their campaign with a four win, four loss record and a final result as the fourth-best under-17 team in the country.
They went down in the semi-final of the 13-team competition on Thursday.
In the school’s first trip to the championships, coach Ryan Adams was satisfied with the result.
“It’s the first time MacKillop has been in this competition, so it was a good performance,” Adams said.
“For this year it’s as far as they can go, but next year most of them will move into the open divisions with Diocesan in March and then NSWCCC in June.”
While it wasn’t the finish they were hoping for, Adams said they had learned from the experience of competing at such a high level.
“We were hopeful of going well, but our expectations were probably on a top six finish and anything else would be a bonus,” he said.
“We probably exceeded that.”
Adams said there were a few highlights from the trip.
“We wanted the boys to have the experience of playing at a national championships and to test themselves against the very best in Australia,” he said.
Defensively MacKillop were strong with a large portion of their points coming from pressure at the other end of the court.
“Defensively our full-court pressure resulted in a lot of turnovers and we ran the fast break really well,” he said.
“A fair chunk of our points came from our defence.”
MacKillop’s starting five were strong, including Lachlan Woods and Darcy Parez.
“We knew there would be a few who would stand up, but our starting five were absolutely outstanding,” Adams said.
“Lachlan Woods led the under-17 division in scoring and averaged about 24 points a game while Darcy Perez our captain and point guard was also very strong.”
MacKillop started their campaign with a 82-56 victory over Newington College before Box Hill were too good in a 90-44 win on day one.
They backed up with a 68-61 win over Berwick College on Tuesday which was followed by a 66-56 victory over Xavier College.
A 67-57 win over St Joseph’s College on Wednesday was cancelled out by a 63-53 loss to Beenleigh College.
A 71-49 loss to St Dominic’s College knocked them out of the championship before the 11-point defeat to Box Hill wrapped up their campaign.
