UNILAG International School begins quest for Doregos title

The secondary school situated in the University of Lagos, the International School Lagos (ISL), will begin its quest for its first title in the six-year-old Doregos Inter-school Basketball Championship with a match against the male and female basketball teams of Corona Secondary School in Ogun State tomorrow. The contest takes place at the basketball court of Doregos Private Academy in Iyana Ipaja, Lagos.

The ISL’s head coach, Ijeomah Ernest, told NEXT Sports his team, “Champion of Champions” as he called them, are the team to beat.

Ernest, who led the ISL to a first place finish at the 2009 Ivy Basketball League men event said: “We are Lagos State champions; every school wants to beat us and as always, we will beat them. The students are prepared and are ready to claim victory over Corona on Friday.”

Revealing that the ISL team has been out of training for a week because of examinations, Ernest gave assurance that the ISL fans that the rustiness will be worked out in a day’s training.

Team Corona unperturbed

However, head coach of Corona Basketball team, Opeyemi Adeyemi, is unperturbed by ISL’s pedigree in secondary schools basketball competition.

“We are training hard for the match. It is not impossible to dethrone champions. We have heard so much about them; know the game they play and their ability to make three pointer throws. We will beat them, no doubt about it,” he said.

Meanwhile, three matches were played on Tuesday at the sixth edition of the Doregos Basketball Championship, which began last Thursday.

Both the male and female teams of KristBethel School, Ipaja, were beaten 5-18 and 20-16 by Lagoon Girls College and TowerGate College respectively while Cayley College got walked-over by Honeyland International School when they failed to show up for the match.

Players’ comments

Speaking after her team’s defeated KristBethel, Lagoon’s 14-year-old shooting guard, Chinenye Nnachetta, who contributed 13 of his team 18 points said, “I love to play. It is good to meet up with students from across the state competitively. I never knew so many people loved the game.”

TowerGate’s point guard, Timi Omotunde, who is participating for the second time in the championships, noted that the level of officiating should be raised. Omotunde said: “They (the organisers) should lay more emphasis on the way the referees officiate the game. They overlooked a lot of fouls; it is discouraging. You see KristBethel committing a lot of fouls which should have given us turnovers but the referee did not make the call.”

Timi and his team mates are scheduled to play the Lagoon male team on Friday, while the female teams of both schools square off on the same day.