St Stithians, St Charles and St Alban’s hit the ground running in the St. John’s College Basketball Tournament | Day One Wrap

Over 700 hopeful hoopers converged in Johannesburg to participate in the 19th edition of the St. John’s College Basketball Tournament.

St. John’s welcomed new faces from four provinces namely Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State and KwaZulu Natal for four days of gruelling action, while two neighbouring countries in Eswatini and Zimbabwe sent out two sets of troops to take part in the tournament.

To get proceedings underway, the KZN-based St Charles College u19s hit the ground running on Thursday, moving past the Parktown Boys u19s with a 33-29 scoreline before going on to close off the opening day with a victory over the hosts, St John’s College late in the evening.

With two victories in the bag, St Charles topped their pool heading into day two and put themselves in a good position to progress to the tournament’s knockout stage following the conclusion of the round-robin stage.

The hosts certainly hit the brick wall in their meeting with St Charles. However, they had already recorded points on the table, having beaten Parktown Boys 51-30 earlier in the day to mark a positive start to the competition.

St Stithians College, St Alban’s College, Michaelhouse, Sacred Heart College and King Edward High also topped their groups having earned positive results on Thursday.

St Stithians dominated St. Peters 54-25, Michaelhouse beat Michael Mount 54-44, while Maritzburg and Jeppe High fell short by 45-66 and 25-34 against St Alban’s and St David’s Marist respectively.

St Benedicts got the better of Kearsney College on Day one with a 39-35 victory.

With Day two promising to bring yet another set of entertainment on the courts, we can certainly expect one or two teams to bounce back after being on the receiving end on Day one.