The Raiders were the great entertainers of club basketball in 2024.
And a year on from their grand final 31-point defeat at the hands of City Lights, the Willie Brown-led side beat Green Up 61-41 to be crowned Gisborne Basketball Association Men’s Premier Grade champions at the YMCA on Tuesday night.
The Most Valuable Player Award for the league was shared by the Raiders’ dynamic duo of Ethan Ngarangione-Pearson and Allies Rangihuna. Each scored 20 points in the showpiece and took the crowd of 450 – as they have throughout their crew’s perfect 10-win season – on the league’s wildest ride one last time.
“We had an idea of what Green Up might have in store for us, and so I told our boys that if we could shut their shooters down early – limit their opportunities – then our own offence would be good to go,” Brown said.
Green Up captain Holden Wilson described it as “the toughest of the three grand finals we’ve played in – 2020 and 2021 being the others – because our shots didn’t fall tonight. The best aspect of our play this time around was our ball movement.”
All four playoff games on Tuesday were eventful.
Old Surfers prioritised the integrity of the grade by ensuring there was no bye for lack of an eighth team, and often sacrificed any chance they might have had at victory to play a well-performed member of another club, therefore making their games better contests for both teams.
Their playoff for seventh against Waengapu Stallions saw 73-year-old former Rising Suns supremo Frank Russell contribute good defensive minutes.
David Sweeney’s Stallions took the honours 49-46 – a nicely timed third win of the season.
Tumaurirere Tuwairua and Hukanui Brown scored 16 and 14 points respectively for the winners.
Jonty Evans got 19 and the much-improved Riley Horsfield 14 for Old Surfers, whose often comic, sometimes Superman Jamie Swift hit the longest three-point shot of 2024 – from a step over halfway – then followed up with an end-to-end assist to hard-running teammate Matt Mackle.
“In the third quarter, we held them to six points,” Russell said. “That got us back into the game. Our improved defence was based on more talk on defence and switching on ball screens.
“It was great to play again ... I did it to give our team a sixth man, with Jamie Swift picking up three fouls early on. I played good defence, but wasn’t able to contribute offensively. But I’m happy, at age 73, that I had a go.”
The Marauders owe their 66-63 win in the playoff for fifth against Gisborne Boys’ High School Senior A team in large part to balanced scoring.
Four of their members put up double figures as they played with urgency from the get-go.
Auric Pocock, one of the finds of the club ball season, made a memorable three-pointer from the left corner early on and Marauders teammate Luke Bradley impressed when he muscled his way to the rim against CJ Tarei.
Bradley made an excellent three-point play and Dom Wilson – as distinct from Dominique Wilson of the Green Up club – gave one of the night’s few length-of-the-court assists to Pocock on the right wing.
SE Systems and 2023 champions City Lights had four players each score in double figures, which made for a super contest for third-place honours.
Systems were a touch more fluent in winning 71-65, although Lights’ Ryan Walters hit a classic trey from the top of the key to open their account.
Rarely does City Lights leader Scott Muncaster turn the ball over in open court, which uncharacteristically he did twice at the start of a contest so tense at times as to produce comedy.
In the first minute of the second period, City Lights’ Darius Waititi-Leach shot an airball from the free-throw line and SE forward Adrian Peachey, waiting for the foul shot to be taken, overbalanced into the key.
In the grand final, big forward Nelson Brown opened the scoring with two free throws.
Teammate Allies Rangihuna followed with a 10-point scoring spree – hitting a three-pointer, getting by Green Up’s towering Cody Tarei to score two, dropping a short jumper, then making a three-point play at Dominique Wilson’s expense.
With 57 seconds left in the first period, Ngarangione-Pearson hit a three-pointer for 18-4.
In the face of that withering assault, Green Up remained calm. They began the second quarter with a solid play, dribble penetration by Holden Wilson and a jump shot on the baseline from Dominique.
Raiders’ first field goal after the resumption was a comic air dunk by Ngarangione-Pearson – the ball slipping out of his fingers on the way up, but plopping through the hoop.
Green Up strongman Khian Westrupp hit a memorable jumper from the left corner as they ate into the deficit.
Despite Ngarangione-Pearson and Rangihuna scoring 20 apiece, the Raiders’ victory was a team performance.
They looked for Connor Mitchell near the basket throughout, James Aston-Nielsen twice looking to feed Mitchell in the post before halftime – Mitchell making good on the second play for 26-15.
Aston-Nielsen had the last say in the second period and his team went into halftime 30-20 in front.
The title decider was fast, furious, but humour was also a feature, as when gritty Green-up player Levi Campbell spun into and bounced off Aston-Nielsen, then looked up to see that he had been nabbed for progress by lead official Felix Sparks.
The third period, which ended 47-24 to Raiders, contained two breakaway dunk shots by Ngarangione-Pearson, a phenomenal lay-up from Green Up’s Nuku Patea-Taylor and a stunning block by Tarei on Rangihuna.
In the fourth period, both teams exchanged three-pointers – Holden from the corner, Rangihuna on the wing and Holden again to put his team 56-34 in front.
Raiders’ Daley Riri drove the ball straight at a backpedalling Dominique Wilson for 59-36 only for Dominique to respond with a wicked basket up and under the glass.
Holden Wilson shot a last-act buzzer-beating trey from the left sideline.
