BSME Swimming Championships; Dubai

On Saturday, 21st April, 24 of our swimmers made their way over to Dubai to compete in the prestigious BSME Swimming Championships. As always we had a mixture of boys and girls from across Years 4-8.

Throughout the day our TES students performed brilliantly, with all of our swimmers producing personal best times in one race or more. The day started with 4 of our boys competing in the 200m freestyle, where Sam, Hamza, Matthew and Finn all swam extremely good races. The positive start continued with the 50m breastroke event, which saw 8 TES children competing. They all managed to swim a personal best time; a fantastic start to the competition for all! Throughout the morning session, the swims just kept getting better and better, with many of our children winning their heats, and often by a few a seconds! As the morning session drew to a close, we finished it off with the 4x50m medley relay races. First up were our 8 & under boys, who dominated their race and won by 15 seconds! Hamza, Tristan, Tom and Arthur made it look easy, as they cruised to gold. They later went on to not only win the 4x50m freestyle relay, but also break the BSME record - superb swimming by these boys! Our 9 & 10 year old girls also swam really well against extremely tough competition. Alice, Filippa, Orla and Isabella, managed a respectable 8th place finish and later added 9th in their freestyle relay. Our 9 & 10 boys also put in a sterling performance, where they managed to pinch third place in the dying metres of the final leg. Finnley, James, Sam and Dexter, swam brilliantly to claim the bronze medal. And as if once wasn’t enough a similar story unfolded in their freestyle relay later on, where they claimed their second bronze medal of the day! Those 9 & 10 year old boys really did make us sweat on pool side!! Our 11 & 12 year old boys managed to add a further bronze medal to our tally. Truman, Matthew, Finn and Liam swam brilliantly to win the bronze and later, narrowly missed out on a second bronze in their 4x50m freestyle relay race. Our 11 & 12 year old girls, consisting of Ella, Thalia, Ruby and Darcy managed two very pleasing 6th place finishes in their medley and freestyle relays.

As we moved into the afternoon session, the high performance swimming continued. Hamza started the afternoon off extremely well, adding yet another gold medal to his tally - 3 wasn’t enough - and managed to break the BSME record by 13 seconds, in the 200 IM! His record breaking streak continued 2 events later, when he won the boys 100m backstroke - a fifth gold and 3rd record. This isn’t forgetting his fantastic 200m freestyle swim right back at the start of the day, where he claimed his first gold and record! What a day this boy was having. He later went on to win his 6th and final race, meaning that Hamza finished his day with 3 new BSME records and 6 gold medals around his neck; amazing job by this young talent!

We had further heat wins as the afternoon continued with Truman and Liam both winning their heat’s in the 50m backstroke and 100m freestyle events and Truman added a third heat win in his 50m butterfly. Both boys broke their personal bests and narrowly missed out on top 6 finishes in their age groups. Alice, Finn, Thalia and Arthur also added heat wins to our tally. Orla, Finnley, Sam, Samuel, Tom, Matthew, Isabella and Ruby, also had top 3 finishes in their heats.

Alongside Hamza’s 6 golds and our 5 relay race medals, Darcy, Arthur, Jason, Sam, Matthew and Finn also added medals and ribbons to our final count at the end of an intense day of competition. Sam and Hamza, also managed to win high points trophies in each of their age groups, winning 2nd and 1st respectively.

Overall, it was a superb weekend of competition and we are extremely proud of all of them!

ISACK U13 Boys Basketball; Semi Final

TES 39 - 43 BSK

The TES boys fought incredibly hard in a very tough situation against BSK in Tuesday's semi-final. The boys were very unfortunate to lose out on a final after an overtime defeat against a good BSK squad. The opening quarter was very tense with both sides unable to get into a scoring rhythm, despite TES getting off to a perfect start from tipoff, Benjamin winning the ball, Truman receiving and passing to Matthew who scored a layup in the opening seconds. BSK fought back taking the lead with the opening section remaining tight throughout with BSK going into the break 9-7 up. In the second quarter the BSK team continued to play zone and the TES boys struggled, turning over possession and unable to score. BSK took advantage of the turnovers and built a significant lead. At half-time the score was 25-13 to BSK and the TES boys had a real challenge on their hands. During the second half the officials started to call technicals for the zone defence and BSK were forced to play man-to-man, resulting in the TES offence really opening up and cutting into the BSK lead. A great 3rd quarter from the boys shut down BSK's main scorer and allowed the TES team to score more on the transition. BSK were called for a further number of technical fouls for playing zone, which allowed the TES scoreboard to keep ticking over. Between Truman, Matthew, Jack, Richard, Woojin, Jad, Finn and Benjamin, they were able to create turnovers through steals, blocks and great pressure during inbounding. Unfortunately, they were picking up too many fouls in the process. After a brilliant start to the second half the BSK lead was cut to 6 with a scoreline of 29-23, with Truman being the star of the show for TES. The 4th quarter was full court pressure and the boys put in a great performance outplaying BSK. TES continued to chip away at the lead and the momentum really swung our way, but unfortunately our key players were picking up too many fouls on defence. A couple of minutes into the final quarter Woojin got fouled out but the TES boys kept battling away and attacking the visiting squad. With a couple of minutes left in the game TES equalled the scores, then with 2 minutes remaining, the boys had a 4 point lead. Unfortunately we lost another player with Benjamin being fouled out. Despite TES taking the lead, number 31 for BSK kept making baskets and built on his 25 point game, converting really difficult shots. In the final minute, the TES team were lacking height and struggled to rebound the ball and also continued to foul whilst in the penalty. With 30 seconds remaining we had a 3 point lead but too many fouls resulted in BSK evening the score in the dying seconds. In overtime we missed our fouled out players and BSK were able to outscore us in the 5 minute period with the final score being 39-43 in BSK’s favour. It was a great effort by the TES boys and I am really proud of the effort and performance they put in, although the season didn't end the way we wanted it to, the boys played brilliantly. Thank you very much for your effort all year long, you should be very proud of your achievements!

KFSAC U11 Boys Basketball Tournament

After being crowned champions at this year’s BSME U11 Games in Dubai, the boys were hoping to continue their undefeated streak at the annual KFSAC tournament, hosted by BSK.

The boys finished off the KFSAC season with a perfect record of winning every single game. On Wednesday, they won 5 out 5 fixtures in the basketball competition at BSK. In the opening game the boys beat KES 16-4 with Maxwell being the top scorer with 6 points, finishing off some baskets after some great assists. In the second fixture the boys outplayed the hosts, BSK, winning 9-0. The boys kept the momentum going and their performances improved during the day, playing some excellent basketball and dominating DBS, with a final score of 10-0. In the fourth fixture the boys played nearly perfect basketball, hitting most of their shots and preventing the opposition from even shooting, let alone scoring. Finnley and Sam scored 8 points each during the 24-0 victory. The final fixture of the tournament was against NES. The boys did not maintain their high level of performance but still did enough to beat NES 9-7. The boys were by far the best team there and have won every single basketball fixture this season, at BSME and KFSAC, showcasing superb teamwork. Well done to Haydn, Sam, Maxwell, Patrick, Finnley, Ciaran and Dexter, you have been excellent all year long!

KFSAC U11 Girls Basketball Tournament

Our Girls U11 basketball squad were completely brand new this year, with no returning members from last year’s team. The girls had the arduous task of converting their benchball and netball finesse, into basketball skills, in a very short space of time. In training, the girls have worked extremely hard and made great progress. But was their hard work going to be enough for the annual tournament?

Their first game, was a tough affair as they went up against ‘giants’!! Our girls were tiny in comparison to the KES team, who alongside their height, happened to also be a very strong team. The game started well for our girls, as they denied KES the opportunity to score. KES too, did a great job of keeping us at bay and so within the first 4 minutes, no one scored. That soon changed though, when KES put up the first basket and then followed this up with one converted free throw. It was now 3-0. For the next 3 or 4 minutes, we attacked their basket and had most of the possession, but unfortunately all we managed to score was one point, from a free throw. KES added two final baskets in the remaining 90 seconds, meaning the final score was 7-1 to KES. Not a great start, but the girls knew it would be their toughest game. Up next were NES and our girls played much better the second time round. They moved the ball more swiftly, were slicker on defence and made sure that NES would have difficulty scoring against us. The first basket eventually came for NES after about 5 minutes. However, we quickly scored an equaliser to level out the game. NES then scored another, meaning we were once again behind, as the score stood at 4-2 with just 2 minutes left. The girls threw everything into the game, desperate to find the equaliser, but it never came. With too many silly errors being made, we had to settle for another loss at 4-2 to NES. Our third game was a similar affair. Both teams working hard, getting shots away but unable to convert shots into points. It was their worst performance of the day, as we suffered our third and thankfully, final defeat to ESF by a score of 8-6 in the end. By now the girls were frustrated and were just hoping that they could walk away with one win. We played EPG in our fourth and penultimate match...and won!! It was quite the performance and the girls really did step up their game, scoring basket, after basket. It was the biggest number of points accumulated all day in the girls tournament, as the girls managed a fantastic 18-5 win! Last up were BSK. The game was a really tight affair with both teams giving it their all. We lost Filippa half way through, as she received a smash to the face with the basketball...blood splattering everywhere!! This was not long after we had also lost Zarah to an ankle injury. BSK also lost one of their key players. This game really was intense and at the end of the game, a 6-6 draw meant that an extra 2 minutes needed to be played. Filippa decided she had had enough of the bench and came on. After 90 seconds of no baskets being scored, our injured soldier managed to score a phenomenal final basket, to win the game 8-6!

With TES, BSK and ESF all tied on points, it then came down to points difference. We were unfortunate to finish 4th, as the girls final two performances were the stuff of champions! 4th out of 12 though, a pleasing result for our youngsters, who are a brand new team!