Twigas reach the final at ISSEA basketball in Kenya.

The basketball teams returned yesterday from Kenya after another very successful tournament for both boys and girls. The boys took a while to get warmed up (a repeat of the soccer championship in November) and were sitting low in the table by the end of the round robin stage on Friday. On finals day, the boys took on ICS Ethiopia in the first game. The game stood at 49-47 to Ethiopia with 8 seconds on the clock. Thomas Maddens (the 3–point shooting expert) was brought on in the dying seconds and true to form he received the ball, lined up the basket and scored the winning 3 points. IST won 50-49. Next, to the semi-final up against the hosts Kenya. Another tense game with IST taking the lead in the dying seconds, again to win by a narrow margin 39-36. Finally, late in the evening, the boys’ championship game against South Africa. The boys held the lead at half-time 29-28 but were over-powered in the last half and finally came in second place to the South Africans who won the tournament 57-41.The girls started slowly on day one but picked up the pace on day two of the round robin with a convincing win over Harare (31-22). On finals day, the girls won their first game in a tense match against South Africa, winning by 2 points. Onto the semi-finals and a tough game against the eventual girls champions Ethiopia, however the girls put some serious points on the board losing 49-35 with some great 3-pointers. The girls then went to the third place play off and lost to Uganda to take fourth place.Many thanks to the coaches, Daryl Rustad and Bahati Mgunda for their hours of hard-work and dedicated coaching. Thanks also to Susan Piper for her assistance with the girls team in Kenya.

Stephen Maine March 2007