Rossendale Raptors represented Blackburn Rovers at the National Premier League for Sport 3 on 3 tournament held at the Ameachi Basketball Centre in Manchester. Boys teams competed in the U14s and U16s competition, whilst two teams from Raptors hub club at St Wilfrids competed in the girls U15 competition.
In the U14s the Raptors team was competitive right from the word go, and the team of Nick Yarwood, Dominic Martin, Callum Lawrence and Matthew Fry won each of their six games to be crowned National Premier League for Sport U14 Champions. It was a terrific display against some bigger and very talented teams.
The girls teams, led by coach Mark Reeve competed terrifically all day and finished second and fourth in what was a very high standard girls competition. Credit goes to the girls, who hadn’t played in the 3 on 3 format before but they adapted quickly and only narrowly lost a couple of games, one to a sudden death free throw shoot out. West Brom were the eventual winners.
The U16’s competed well in what was a very tough age group. The standard was much higher than in previous years and the team struggled against more experienced players, many of whom had played some National League basketball during the season. The team did very well and won a good game against Newcastle and finished seventh.
The event demonstrated the strong links between the Raptors and Blackburn Rovers. The link saw new hub clubs developed by the Raptors at St Wilfrids, Darwen Vale, and Accrington Academy and its hoped that the partnership will continue to blossom in the coming years. Ken Masser who has developed the partnership with the Football Club commented “its been a pleasure to work with Blackburn Rovers, and the various schools. We’ve engaged a lot of new young people who have really progressed during the year. They’ve had the chance to compete in several competitions and have done really well. It just goes to show that there is a lot of interest in the sport and a lot of talent locally that we can tap into. We will continue to work with Blackburn Rovers to establish other hub clubs in the future.”