Postponement foils scheduled full weekend

The fifth weekend of Cadiz League competition would have been the first where all 7 GABBA teams were involved, but it was not to be. GABBA were hosting CB Algeciras at the TSH in a Senior Men’s match on Saturday afternoon. Both teams had already started their pre-match warm-up when an official call was received to inform GABBA that the car bringing the referees and table officials had broken down on the way from Chiclana. The match was, therefore, postponed to the great disappointment of participants and spectators.

Short reports on the 6 matches that were played follow:

UNDER 15 GIRLS: CB Algeciras 39 - GABBA 55 (Briella Bagu 22, Erin Doherty 14)
[10-13; 9-19; 4-10; 16-13].
A 9-0 run quickly overturned a 4-0 start from the home side and, from then on, in spite of CBA’s efforts to stay in contention, GABBA led all the way to the final buzzer, with the Briella/Erin tandem looking good.

MINIBASKET BOYS: Adesa 44 - GABBA 58 (John Duo 14, Theo Gomez Cleson 10)
[6-7; 2-14; 6-10; 11-7; 13-10; 6-10]
A long trip to Sanlucar de Barrameda on Saturday morning did not affect this young team’s first-half performance, in which they established a 31-14 advantage, which was to prove an impossible mountain to climb for Adesa. The second period score was fundamental and the quintet, made up of the team’s top scorers on the day, named above, plus Tom Buchanan, Riley Roper and Nikolai Foley deserve a mention.

JUNIOR MEN: Cadiz 64 - GABBA 59 (Andy Luque 15, Javi Andrews 13, Youssef Laghrich 10) [28-14; 15-17; 13-15; 8-13].
GABBA won 3 of the quarters but losing the first of these by 14 points proved too much to claw back, even though the team fought back bravely, in spite of an injury to Andrews 7 minutes from the end. They should win the next 2 away matches, against opposition which they defeated comfortably in the TSH, and would then need to beat Cadiz by more than 5 points to win the group and claim a place in the second phase Group, made up of the winners of the other 5 groups.

UNDER 14 BOYS: GABBA 39 (Ryan Cornelio 19) - ULB 60 [8-23; 5-11; 9-14; 17-12].
The visiting team, from La Linea, manifested their all-round superiority from the tip-off. Our boys found it difficult to adjust to playing in the centre court and, in the first period, often ran out of bounds. Nevertheless, they defended bravely and improved in the second-half to the extent that ULB failed to add to their 21 points’ first-half lead. Ryan Cornelio, grandson of the great, late Kenneth Saez, was impressive.

UNDER 16 BOYS: GABBA 78 (Ben Lejeune 28, Shae Felice 26) - ULB 27
[23-10; 21-9; 26-6; 8-2].
The tables were turned in this match, the second against the La Linea boys this weekend. The Ben/Shae tandem, ably supported by their team-mates, “closed the score” after 2 minutes of the last quarter, reaching the 50 points’ difference in the score. Having won their previous match by the same margin, their return fixtures in the 3-team group is a mere formality, so they are headed to Group 1 in the second phase.

UNDER 14 GIRLS: Cadiz 26 - GABBA 76 (Gabby Lines 17, Ruqayyah Afrah 14, Rose Cocklan 12, Isabella Garcia 11, Erin Doherty 10) [5-22; 1-18; 12-20; 8-16].
This highly promising team ran riot in Cadiz, reaching the 50 points difference in the last minute. Worthy of note is that with only 7 players available on the day, their most experienced, Erin Doherty, was the least used, with 22 minutes on court.