ARBROATH HIGH SCHOOL TAKE 12^TH SCOTTISH TITLE

Arbroath High School Open Girls team cruised to a 98-38 win over Falkirk High School to take the Scottish Schools Cup Final. The girls showed an excellent display of team basketball by dominating the game from the start. The dynamic duo of Van Wees and Black put an incredible 68 points on the board and with excellent performances from Richards, Mcloughlin, Harrison, Marsden and Moore the game quickly became out of reach for the Falkirk side. Captain Van Wees was unstoppable with a triple double of points, blocks and rebounds. In the semi-final defeat of Park Mains, point guard Richards showed with her season high of 20 points securing the 1 point win for the Arbroath High Team leading her team to the final. Most improved player goes to Courtney Marsden, a future basketball star.

Arbroath High School U14s also took the Cup with a 42-38 win over Dunbar Grammar School. This is the 2^nd time the team have become national champions. Captain Callon dominated this game with an incredible 26 points. Solid performances from Bell, Smith, Watson and Feighan helped to secure the win. McFarlane, Burns, Smart and Gauld continue to improve and will be key to this team competing to win the title for the 3^rd year running.

Commiserations go to the U15 girls who lost out on the title by 1 point 54-55 to Culloden in the last moments of the game! Incredibly the result and circumstances were similar to last year’s encounter, but, Arbroath were the victors.  The quality of play from both sides was of an exceptional standard with Captain Robb scoring 36 points and Van Wees claiming 10. Although losing out on the title, this final was without question filled with drama which gave the crowd a thrilling spectacle of sport.

Our congratulations go to all the teams for their performances.

Scottish Schools Open Boys Cup Final, held at Grangemouth Sports Complex   Wednesday 20^th March 2013.

Arbroath High School v James Gillespie’s School, Edinburgh

Arbroath High School’s Senior Boys Team were in confident mood going in to the National Cup Final but their hopes were dashed right from the outset as their opponents were quickly off their mark and produced a scintillating display of offensive basketball – their outside shooting was outstanding as they hit perimeter shot after shot with one player in particular who was virtually unstoppable as they raced to a huge 30-10 lead after only ten minutes played. Arbroath tried everything to counter this but their opponents continued to convert from the outside and by the end of the first half had stretched their lead to 59-30 with the game out of the reaches of the High School boys.

In the second half they continued to fight valiantly and actually won this period 37-35 but the damage had already been done in the opening two periods of the match.

At the end the Edinburgh team fully deserved their first win at this level of competition and were more than worthy 94-67 victors.

Among the pluses for Arbroath was the display of young guard Daniel Fraser who ended up top scorer with 16 individual points. The big three of captain Nicky Sim, who was injured in the second half and was withdrawn, fell way below the awesome displays he delivered in the earlier rounds. Jeb Spink and Duncan Pattullo were also closely guarded throughout the game and were prevented having their normal dominating influence on  the game but they refused to give up and battled on right to the final buzzer. The youngest member of the starters, Kailin Brannigan had a stellar performance and pitched in with 9 personal points to help his team.

Coach John Grant was bitterly disappointed with the defeat but had to admit that on the day the other team definitely deserved to win the game.

“They shot the ball as well as any team I ever seen in all my years of coaching – one of their boys hit 7out of 9 three pointers in the first half – unbelievable percentage shooting at any level. Eight out of twelve of their boys also play for the country’s number one club team – Boroughmuir Blaze and their depth of talent was evident as they maintained their high level of performance throughout the game. However, our team can hold their heads high, as we have beaten some big teams to get here and it is the fifth time we have reached this final – only two other schools in the history of the event have ever done this – I would like to thank all the members of the team for getting us to this stage of the competition – they should be very proud of themselves.

Scorers:

Daniel Fraser        16

Jeb Spink               15

Nicky Sim             13

Duncan Pattullo  10

Kailin Brannigan  9

Kerr Feighan         4

Our S2 Girls team has made further progress, winning their quarter-final match in the Scottish Cup. With another excellent team performance, the girls defeated Mary Erskine HS, from Edinburgh by a score of 54-23. Hannah Robb was top scorer for Arbroath Hs with 22 points in the game.