The annual tournament was played at the indoor basketball court at Liaquat Gymnasium. PHOTO: FILE
Zain Tariq, 16, moved across the court from the right and caught the power forward sleeping. He drove to the basket, timed his jump perfectly and got the ball through the hoop. It was the second quarter of the game and the scoreboard now read 17-12 in favour of Tariq’s team, the Beaconhouse Central Region (BCR).
The BCR boys led their opponents, the Beaconhouse North Region (BNR) boys’ team, for the rest of the final game and in the fourth quarter, Tariq dribbled the length of the court to give BCR an unbeatable 14-point lead.
The BCR boys’ team and the BNR girls’ team lifted the winners’ trophies at the two-day Beaconhouse School System (BSS) Interregional Basketball Tournament on Saturday.
The annual tournament was played at the indoor basketball court at Liaquat Gymnasium.
The Northern region’s team edged past BCR in the final for the girls’ event with a score of 20-18.
BNR girls’ captain Aleezae Adeel, an O’ levels student at Beaconhouse Margalla Islamabad campus, said this was the first time the North region outclassed their traditional rivals.
“They had a very tall player in their team and we were all skinny girls,” Adeel said, referring to Central’s Qibtia Nisar, who was also awarded the best girl player trophy. “But we developed a strategy of man marking and it worked for us.”
Coach’s lessons played a vital role in both final. The BCR boys had started slowly and were on the back foot for most of the first quarter.
“We were really under pressure at the beginning of the game but then our coach called a time out,” Tariq, a tenth grade student at Beaconhouse Canal side Lahore, said. “He told us to cool down and to focus on our strengths.”
The pep talk helped the BCR boys turn the game around. In the end, the BCR boys beat the BNR boys 37-24.
The BNR boys’ team got some consolation when their captain Shahbaz Khan, an O-2 student at BMI, received the best player trophy for the boys’ competition.
BSS executive director Nasir Kasuri, former Squash World Champion Qamar Zaman and national Squash coach Jamshed Gul distributed trophies and medals among the winners and runners-up.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 3rd, 2013.
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