Having achieved their pre-tournament goal of making the semifinals, the boys then went past Franklin 39-16, having saved their best for last.
The boys trailed Tauranga 14-8 at quartertime but, with excellent pressure-defence, held their previously unbeaten opponents scoreless through the next two periods to take the lead (16-14, 29-14).
The u11 girls began their campaign with a 22-20 win against Tauranga and beat Franklin 52-12 but finished Day 1 with a 21-10 loss to Rotorua.
Gisborne beat Tauranga 30-27 on Sunday morning with the girls then outplaying Franklin 32-5 before their second showdown with Rotorua.
Again the home team prevailed, this time by 26-19. A big skilful Rotorua team took the third meeting — and the final — 17-12 yesterday morning.
GBA head coach Dwayne Tamatea said the Gisborne teams had hearts of lions.
“We’re always the underdogs but they play with huge hearts — all Leityn (Swann) and I did was provide structure and then let them loose,” he said.
“Our under-11 girls played smart basketball and gave Rotorua a real fright — the score was 15-12 to Rotorua with only a minute to play.
“And our boys were the most consistent team, in terms of preparation and execution, of the 10 boys’ teams at the tournament.
“These groups have done a lot of work on fundamental skills in the past three years — under good coaches such as Adrian Sparks — and it’s starting to pay off, as the results prove.
“The skill-level is high and we were able to apply full-court pressure throughout the games.
“We lost our first game of the tournament to Tauranga and then won six games in a row from there. It was a team effort and everybody contributed.”
Tamatea said the tournament was run well, and all teams enjoyed it.
This was the best Gisborne had done at this tournament — last year the boys were fifth and the girls, third.
“Leityn was a great influence on both of our teams,” Tamatea said.
“His knowledge and input to these players was invaluable.
“Our kids are respectful, well-behaved, gracious in defeat, humble in victory and always have a good time with a sense of humour and enthusiasm.”
“From our under-13s down, we improved our rankings in both boys’ and girls’ basketball at representative level this year.
“Basketball is on the rise nationwide with regard to numbers at junior level, and especially in Gisborne.
“With the older age groups — the under-15s, 17s and 19s at national tournaments — numbers are up, and those players are being exposed to basketball at a high level.”
The GBA’s mini-ball programme for Year 3 to Y6 primary school players will be run at the Victoria Domain this Friday.
