The 2011 National Schools Final Fours have taken place over the past two weekends, with the top four teams in the U14, U15, U16, U17 and U19 age groups fighting it out for the right to be called National Champions. See below for full results, leading scorers plus a few notes:

Childwall Sports College from Merseyside won their first championship after defeating Itchen College from Southampton 90-65. Childwall’s Paris Kaye-Minto was named MVP after scoring 29 points. Captain A. Ugo added 23, whilst A. Thomas had 21. Adam Wilkinson led Itchen with 14 points, whilst Matt Lucas added 13.

U17 National Schools Final Fours Final Standings

1) Childwall Sports College
2) Itchen
3) Northampton School for Boys
4) Greig City Academy

3rd Place Playoff
Northampton School For Boys took the third place spot as they defeated Greig City Academy from North London 81-61. Sam Round once again led the scoring for Northampton, finishing with 35 points, with Piers Toone adding 16. Greig City were led by Dwayne Linque’s 14 points.

Semi Final 1
Childwall defeated Greig City 69-68 behind 26 points from A. Thomas and 23 from P. Kaye-Minto who hit the game winning free throw. Kahniel Codrington led GCA with 19 points, backed up by 17 from Dwayne Linque.

Semi Final 2
Itchen College beat Northampton School for Boys 83-74 behind 31 points (6 three’s) from captain Adam Wilkinson. Jonathon Grant added 19 for Itchen, whilst Sam Round led Northampton with 26, despite battling with an ankle injury.

Barking Abbey School beat Helsby High School from Cheshire 72-70 in the most entertaining game of the two weekends, as Cheshire Junior Jets guard Cameron Mackay just missed his game-winning 3 point attempt. Barking Abbey captain Dwayne Orija was named as MVP scoring 24 points, with Zanis Jankovskis (an U14) finishing with 19. Cameron Mackay and Kyle Squire led Helsby with 25 and 20 points respectively.

U16 Premier National Schools Final Fours Final Standings

1) Barking Abbey
2) Helsby High School
3) St Bonaventures
4) St Peter’s RC High School

3rd Place Playoff
St Bonaventures School took third place as they defeated St Peter’s RC High School from Manchester 81-48.

Semi Final 1
The U16 Boys’ Premier semi finals saw barking Abbey School defeat St Peters 80-66 behind 29 points from Dwayne Orija and 15 from Calvin Kintu. Andre Gayle-McIntosh had 24 to lead St Peters whilst Trevor Samuels had 22.

Semi Final 2
Helsby defeated St Bonaventure’s School 87-63 behind 33 points from Cameron Mackay. Kyle Squire chipped in with 17, whilst Alex Semanda had 16, and Michael Ebose had 14 for St Bonaventure’s.

Barking Abbey took yet another championship as they beat Canterbury High School from Kent, 71-54, in the U15 Boys’ Premier competition. Riccardo Guddemi’s team-play and 21-point haul (5 three pointers) earned him MVP honours for Barking Abbey. Captain Dwayne Orija chipped in 19, whilst Liam Carpenter and Dave Couchman had 15 and 14 respectively for Canterbury.

U15 Premier National Schools Final Fours Final Standings

1) Barking Abbey
2) Canterbury High School
3) Northampton School for Boys
4) Helsby High School

3rd Place Playoff
Northampton’s Sam Round secured a 92-87 overtime victory over Helsby High School to secure third place, going 4/4 at the line in the final moments to cap off a 42 point performance. Billy Fox had 18 points to back him up whilst Zach Baird had 29 to lead Helsby, with Alex Jones adding 21. Cameron Mackay sat out injured.

Semi Final 1
Barking Abbey played Northampton School For Boys in the first semi final of the day and beat them 71-58. Dwayne Orija led Barking Abbey with 16 points, whilst Calvin Kintu, Josh Steel and Riccardo Guddemi chipped in 12 points each. Sam Round had a 25 point first half performance for Northampton, to finish with 30, but got little help with Josh Elliot the next leading scorer with 10 points.

Semi Final 2
Canterbury High School beat Helsby 64-50 behind 18 points from Tyler Russell and 17 from Liam Carpenter. Cameron Mackay led Helsby with 20 points.

In the U14 Boys, Barking Abbey again dominated the competition, as they took their final championship of the weekend with a win in the final against St Margaret’s High School from Liverpool 85-52. Josh Steel of Barking Abbey was awarded the MVP, finishing with 16 points, whilst Calvin Kintu and Zanis Jankovskis added 18 points each. Sam Valentine led St Margaret’s with 17 points, with Alex Roberts adding 14.

U14 National Schools Final Fours Final Standings

1) Barking Abbey
2) St Margaret’s
3) St Benedict
4) Plymstock

3rd Place Playoff
In the third place playoff St Benedict School pulled away from Plymstock in the final few minutes of the fourth quarter to win 82-72. Captain Kayne King led St Benedict with 34 points, backed up by 13 points-a-piece from Geovan Inacay and Ashley Richards. Lewis Wright (29) and Joe Adams (26) combined for 55 points to lead Plymstock.

Semi Final 1
St Margaret’s High School were the first semi final on the day as they played Plymstock School from Devon, taking the first spot in the final with a 57-43 win. Alex Roberts led St Margaret’s with 26 points, whist Joe Adams had 21 to lead Plymstock.

Semi Final 2
St Benedicts School from Derby played Barking Abbey in the second semi final and pushed them all the way before Barking Abbey took their spot in the final with a 77-62 win. Josh Steele led Barking Abbey with 24 points, he was backed up by 20 points from Calvin Kintu, 14 from Riccardo Guddemi and 12 from Zanis Jankovskis. Kayne King was impressive for St Benedict, finishing with 32,whilst Kylan Barrett-Ratcliffe had 17.

Burnley College won their first National School Championship title after routing Ellesmere Port Catholic High School 113-70 in the final. Burnley College proved too big for the Ellesmere Port side, which featured England U18 fringe players Niel Gillard and John Gould as well as England U16 Jack Griffiths but lacked a presence inside.

Burnley’s Adrian Hodgers was named MVP with a 22 point performance, backed up by Andre Taylor’s 23 points and 19 from James MacLane. John Gould had 23 to lead Ellesmere Port before fouling out, with Adam Jones adding 15 points.

U19 Conference National Schools Final Fours Final Standings

1) Burnley College
2) Ellesmere Port Catholic High School
3) Greig City Academy
4) TASIS Surrey

3rd Place Playoff

The U15 Boys’ Conference final saw Holy Trinity School walk away with their first championship as they beat St Marys School-Croydon 84-81. Selby Hind-Wills scored the last 11 points for Holy Trinity School to win and be named MVP, finishing with 29 points, with Edwin Murahwa adding 23. St Mary’s were led by Rasheed Olaniyan’s 26 and Jorge Decosta’s 23.

U15 National Schools Conference Final Fours Final Standings

1) Holy Trinity
2) St Mary’s School Croydon
3) Alder Community College
4) Burleigh College

3rd Place Playoff
The third place playoff game saw Alder Community College cruise to a 103-48 rout of Burleigh College. Alder had three players with 20+ points; James Hancock (25), Tom Lindsay (21) and Connor Grime (21). K. Howells had 13 to lead Burleigh.

Semi Final 1
St Marys School-Croydon beat Burleigh College 71-58, behind 19 points from Rasheed Olaniyan and 14 from Alexis Martins. S. Sakaria had 16 to lead Burleigh.

Semi Final 2
Holy Trinity CofE School edged out Alder 70-63 behind 23 points from Edwin Murahwa. Tom Lindsay had 15 to lead Alder.

Notes

• Overall standard of the two weekends wasn’t great, perhaps to be expected at a schools level.
• There were a few players at U14s level that were impressive. St Margarets point guard Alex Roberts showed he can run a team, making some pretty sweet dishes whilst adding a little mustard on ’em! St Benedict point guard Kayne King was also decent, whilst Barking Abbey’s group of Calvin Kintu (1997), Josh Steel (1997), Riccardo Guddemi (1996) and Zanis Jankovskis (1997) were all impressive.
• U16 Conference MVP Max Richardson (1995) has potential. Needs to keep growing if he’s going to remain an inside player (only 6’5″), but at this level dominated. He had 14 in the first quarter of the final alone and appeared as if he was going to go off for 40+; easily could have done if it wasn’t for missing a number of easy putbacks throughout the remainder of the game. Also had a nasty two handed putback dunk which was the highlight of the weekend.
• Ellesmere Port’s Adam Jones (1994), who also plays for Manchester Magic U16s was dominant in all of their games. One to keep an eye on.
• Barking Abbey won the U14,  U15 Prem, and U16 Prem titles. All the more impressive when their main U14 players featured heavily on every team, and even more impressive than that was the U16 title was won without any of their Year 11’s who were at home revising for their English GCSE the next day (scheduling error from EB).
• The U16 Premier Final was easily the most entertaining game of the two weekends. All hell would’ve broken loose if Mackay had hit the gamewinning 3 point attempt-with a no call on a blatant offensive foul a second before.
• Barking Abbey’s Myles Laurent-Smart (1996 born) must be one of the, if not the, quickest guard in his age group (and probably older) in the country. Is lightning quick with the ball and has crazy athleticism; he’s almost throwing down in warm-ups, standing at about 5’7″.
• Sam Round (1995) will likely be one of the leading scorers for the England U16s this summer. He’s an absolute gun, was finishing well with both hands and knocking down his free throws. Over the four games he played he finished with 42, 30, 35 and 26 points for a 33.2 average, not bad all whilst playing on a dodgy ankle.
• In the U15 Conference final a kid from St Mary’s had 40+ rebounds (seriously). More of a reflection of the standard of play than anything (horrific).
• Burnley’s Andre Taylor had the backy of the weekend, getting rejected by the rim in a big way on a fast break dunk attempt. To be fair to him though, he probably had the best individual performances of any player in the U19s group.
• Cameron Mackay (1995) and Kyle Squire (1994) make a very nice backcourt for Helsby at U16 level. England U16 Mackay was nursing a wrist injury that hindered him over the tournament, but was impressive none-the-less.
• Dwayne Orija (1995) from Barking Abbey looked like a man amongst boys at times in both the U15 and U16 Premier competitions. Crazy athleticism and potential, but does lack aggressiveness at times.
• Huge thanks to Gail Richards from England Basketball for being so accommodating over the two weekends!

Did you attend either of the weekends? What did you think? Standout players? Drop a comment and let us know!