Winning weekend for GABBA

GABBA supporters celebrated two excellent wins at the TSH last weekend as, first, the Under 16 Girls overturned a 14 points’ deficit suffered in the first leg of their quarter-final in Jerez a fortnight back, on Saturday evening, followed on Sunday morning by a hard-fought win by the Junior Men in the first leg of their quarter-final against a team that had beaten them by 20 and 12 points in the First Phase of the competition.

FULL RESULTS

UNDER 16 GIRLS: GABBA 72 (Briella Bagu 17, Erin Doherty 17, Tasnim El Yettefti 14, Daniela Martinez 10) - Xerez 42 [19-6; 20-14; 20-14; 13-8].

GABBA ran away in the scoreboard in the last 4 minutes of the first quarter with a 12-0 burst, after an evenly fought start to what was expected to be a tense tussle. It took 6 minutes of the second quarter for GABBA to tie the aggregate score (Xerez started with a 14 points’ lead from the first leg), and shortly after, Daniela Martinez, who had controlled the pace of the match beautifully, sank a 3-pointer to make it 33-16 (3 up on aggregate) and by half-time it was 39-20.
The minutes immediately after half-time can frequently alter the run of play as teams either lose concentration or come out determined to fight back. On this occasion, GABBA carried on where they had left off, and 3 players whose play was fundamental in the ultimate result scored a basket each in the first 2 minutes to stretch the aggregate lead to 11 points: Tasnim El Yettefti, always ghosting into spaces to score vital points; under-14’s Erin Doherty, whose intelligent play from the high post in offence drove her bulkier opponent into fouling out, and commanded our defensive rebounding, and the diminutive powerhouse that is Briella Bagu, who kept the visiting prolific scorer quiet with her brilliant defence and, amazingly, was always leading the fast break.
A 3-pointer from Tasnim put GABBA 30 points up (16 up on aggregate) just before the end of the quarter, but 7 straight points from Xerez reduced the gap to 9 two minutes into the last quarter, and there was still work to be done. And it was done, with Daniela sinking another 3 and Briella and another under-14, Lily Mauro, sharing 10 points to make it 72-39, and the girls were home and dry, and in the semi-finals.
With a 12-2 wins/losses record so far, this is GABBA’s best team in the Cadiz League, and this was their best match to date.

Unfortunately, the first leg of the semi-final, which would have been played at home, is against Adesa, from Sanlucar de Barrameda, one of the clubs which opted not to play in Gibraltar, so fans are requested to travel the short distance to Los Barrios to support the girls on Saturday morning (tip-off 10:00 am). The teams have already met twice earlier this season, in which a depleted GABBA lost by 15 away just before Christmas, and won by 6 in La Linea two months ago, so it’s a wide open contest.

UNDER 18 MEN: GABBA 57 (Javier Felice 18, Javi Andrews 14, Kingsley Sylvester 10) - Chipiona 48 [5-14; 13-8; 22-10; 17-16].

GABBA, having won the Second Phase’s Group 3 (made up of the teams that finished third in the First Phase) earned a quarter-final place against Chipiona, second in Group 1 (First Phase groups’ winners), so it was no surprise that the visitors comfortably won the first quarter. This jogged our lads and, loudly supported, they staged a great reaction, winning the second quarter to reduce the gap to 4 by half-time, and start the third quarter with a 9-0 burst to go 27-22 up. Chipiona hit back to level at 29 after 6 minutes, but GABBA replied with 6 straight points in a minute (4 of these from under-16 Shae Felice, playing up for the first time) and the very successful quarter ended with a 40-32 lead.
It was then 44-34 (3rd minute), Chipiona reduced the gap to 44-41, the 10 points’ advantage (53-43)was regained with a minute left and the final cushion is 9 points, ahead of the second leg in Chipiona on Saturday at 4:45pm.
A great win against a very strong opponent, crafted in an awesome defensive effort. And, it has to be said, the 9 points’ advantage could have been bigger had the free-shot statistic (14 scored from 28 attempted) been better.

UNDER 14 GIRLS: GABBA 54 (Isabella Garcia 10, Isla Balban 10) - Algaida 30 [14-16; 16-6; 16-6; 8-2].

Four players are also prominent in the Under-16 team and, for this match, Briella Bagu and Chloe Balban were “rested” and Erin Doherty and Lily Mauro played 17 and 16 minutes, respectively. This allowed the other girls to take on the challenge of playing without their top players, and they rose to the occasion, underlining the wealth of talent girls’ basketball is developing.

UNDER 14 BOYS: Portuense 45 - GABBA 32 (Seb Picardo 12) [9-4; 18-6; 9-13; 9-9].

This was Portuense’s first win in Group 1 bringing them level with GABBA but, having lost by 22 points in the first round match in TSH, the win was not enough to overtake GABBA at the bottom of the table.