Rota sweeps small schools regional hoops titles
Published: January 31, 2012
While the races in Regions II, III and IV look to go down to the wire as the regular basketball season winds down over the next three weeks, Rota’s boys and girls and SHAPE’s girls took care of business last weekend in Region I.
Rota’s boys went 6-0 Thursday-Saturday at Alconbury, sweeping to the “small-schools” version of the Region I crown contested by Alconbury, Brussels, Menwith Hill and Rota. Rota’s girls were a three-ball away from duplicating their boys’ performance at Alconbury, falling to Brussels 16-14 to finish the three-day marathon at 5-1.
Even so, the Lady Admirals, who had defeated Brussels 27-18 in the teams' other showdown at Alconbury, clinched the small-schools portion of the title unique to Region I based on points-differential between the two schools.
The school system’s other three regions award just one regional crown regardless of school size. Ironically, the Brussels girls are 8-2 this season against Region I schools of all sizes, but ineligible for the region's big-schools crown, reserved exclusively for SHAPE, AFNORTH or Lakenheath.
In the Region I big-schools races, involving the region’s Division I- and II-sized schools, SHAPE’s Lady Spartans clinched their regular-season crown when they defeated AFNORTH 39-26 at home Friday night. Even though AFNORTH was able to knock SHAPE from the ranks of the unbeaten, 30-27 Saturday at home, SHAPE completed its Region I big-schools schedule at 5-1. AFNORTH, with two games left to play at Lakenheath, is 2-2 in that context.
The boys' big-schools race will be decided Feb. 10-11 at Lakenheath, when the AFNORTH boys, 10-1 overall and 4-0 in regional big-schools play, take on the Lancers, who are 5-5 overall but 3-1 in the region.
How do you feel about the split titles in Region I? Is it unfair for the D-III schools in that league to reserve a crown for themselves while the D-III teams in the other leagues -- Bamberg and Sigonella. to name two -- must defeat big-schools powers of the strength of Heidelberg and Naples, for example, to earn a regional crown?
Let us know what you think.
