Napier Boys High School are the defending Lower North Island Champions and can quite legitimately claim to be the favourites to defend that title as they travel to Wellington on Tuesday.

When you’re as competitive on the national circuit as Napier Boys High School it can be difficult to find good competition locally. The Hawke’s Bay Trail Media Elite League has helped Boys High in this regard. “This was definitely one of the main problems that clearly needed a solution if the region is to continuously produce nationally competitive programmes in this day and age,” says BBHB Basketball Manager Morgan Maskell. “BBHB needs to be able to provide the right level of competition in order for the region to properly provide development for these talented players in these nationally competitive programmes,” says Maskell.

Boys High lost 77-86 to Toro Atu last week and lost 87-93 to Kings the week before in the Elite League. Experience in competitive games that go down to the wire is vital for Boys High. Fortunately for Boys High it won’t be Alonzo Burton or Kareem Johnson on the opposition next week, and that experience can be leaned on in key moments against fellow teenagers next week and could be the difference between winning or losing.

After easily disposing Palmerston North and New Plymouth Boys High this season, it looks as though the toast of Wellington will be their main competition at the Lower North Island tournament next week. Tawa College feature NZ U16 Forward Ben Gold who was in the tournament team at this years U17 National Championships. Standing at 6’8 he cuts an imposing figure on the court. Scots College has become a rival of Napier Boys as they have contested the Lower North Island Junior Grand Final in back-to-back years. NZ U16 Forward Tafara Gapare is the star player for Scots who also has a mighty frame at 6’7.

Napier Boys may not have players like that but, standing at 6’5, Kobe Kara is vital on both ends for Boys High. As Kara points out “the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack,” indicating that the lanky star players of their main opposition may be best dealt with by some superior team play by the Boys High wolfpack. Kara points out the Boys High love to play very fast; “we love transition offence. This will help us win because we feel as a team we can out-work and out-run anybody.

Kara has had a fantastic season both as key members for the Hawke’s Bay U19 Boys and Boys High. On the back of his stellar play, Kara earned selected to the Steven Adams High School Invitational in Christchurch this year.

Known for his quiet humbleness, Kara had no words about himself but only for his team saying that “every player is essential to the success of our team from the first man to the last. We win together, we lose together.” This is a sentiment that star player Clifton Bush III echoed by lauding the teams bench saying that “our bench is always hype. Every possession on both ends of the floor they are always helping the players on the court. As soon as their name is called they are ready to go and know exactly what to do.”

Clifton Bush III has had a fantastic 2019 which saw him be named in the Taylor Hawks team. He is believed to be the second youngest to ever take the court for the Taylor Hawks after Hawks legend Paul Henare. Clifton was always named as a non-travelling reserve for the NZ U17 Men’s team, attended the NBA Basketball without Borders Camp in Tokyo, and was invited to the Steven Adams High School Invitational. So it goes without saying that Bush III will have a target on his back coming into next week’s tournament.

It is without doubt that Bush III and Kara are vital to the team’s success but they are quick to let us know that everyone on their team is important, especially their coaches. “We are given the freedom to do what we want to do on offence as long as we get the job done on defence,” says Kara. Bush III told us that Coach Dee & Bugg Davies are “very underrated as coaches and I do not see any duo as great as they have been.” High praise for two excellent coaches that have seen Boys High achieve a lot of success in recent years. Head Coach Bugg Davies could not be reached for comment.

With the focus being on next week’s Lower North Island tournament where the Top 6 teams qualify for the National Tournament in October, you won’t find anybody talking about nationals just yet. But have no doubt that Napier Boys High have a championship in their mind after finishing 8^th last year. The consensus among the basketball community is that 2019 is wide open with a large range of teams considering themselves title contenders from Rosmini, Rangitoto and St Kent’s in Auckland, to St John’s & Rotorua in the Upper North Island to Napier Boys themselves. And why not our boys from the Bay?