When the crossover phase kicks in during a basketball tournament the sound of some placings ring truer than others.
"If we win tomorrow [today] we'll be playing for 9 and 10 but if we lose we'll be going for 10 and 12 but I can tell you top 10 sounds much sweeter than 12," Hastings Boys' High School coach Curtis Wooten said last night, after his troops put Melville College, of Hastings, to the sword with an 88-59 victory.
The HBHS side play St Pat's Town, of Wellington, at 9am today but Wooten said his boys would have their work cut out against the premiership qualifying champions.
"They will be really tough to beat," he said, as the playoffs for berths in the middle tier kicked in at the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Basketball Tournament in Palmerston North.
Wooten said New Plymouth Boys' High and Palmerston North Boys' High schools were in the final four of the main competition so that was a "big feather" in the cap of this qualifying zone.