South East Tigers U16 made an impressive start to their teams record by beating St Bede’s School team 48-44.
The Tigers, who play out of St Leonards Academy and Claverham Community College, already have a senior team but have set themselves a target of entering a youth team in next seasons league. The match was their first ever competitive game and was arranged by Tigers youth coach Nicole Goddard. Nicole has huge experience both as a player and coach of youth teams and was able to bring in another team to put into practice all the hard training by the young players.
St Bede’s school team, also coached by Nicole have been playing together for a while and contain older players. The Tigers were naturally a little nervous and this showed in the first quarter scores of 14-23 to St Bede’s. However an encouraging word from Nicole saw the team improve in defence and the second quarter was even, ending 24-33.
The third quarter was significant for the Tigers team as Nicole handed over coaching responsibilities to Joel Hunt the new youth team coach. Joel gave them his pep talk which seemed to do the trick as the team was able to pull back to 38-39 with some good accuracy on basket from range. The final quarter was all to play for and it was a foul that lead to two free throws in the final 10 seconds that put it out of reach for St Bede’s, the game ending 48-44.
Club chairmen Hung Li commented after the match “What a great way to start the youth team in Hastings & St Leonards, a town of this size deserves youth teams in all divisions but this is a fantastic start. Joel has lots of work to do, massive potential with our players but we can improve, particularly moving the ball around the team. We would like to thank Nicole for all her hard work and wish her the best while she travels the world”

Tigers runs sessions for all ages and abilities. However if you are under 18 on the 1st Sept 2016 and interested in joining a youth team next season then please contact South East Tigers now. The club are also looking for coaches/referees/table officials and local sponsorship so if you want to support local youth sport in the area then get in touch.