ST COLUMBA’S College U14 basketball team retained their National Champions title in strong fashion on Sunday.

Taking part in the English Schools Basketball tournament since September, they worked their way strongly through the group stages.

They progressed from the knock out rounds to make it to the final four teams that would fight it out at the national finals at Nottingham Wildcats arena.

It was set to be a testing day as St Columba’s was the only home-grown school team left in the age group playing against specialist basketball academy players.

Drawn against Holy Trinity School from Crawley in the semi-final, the boys came out victorious in a hard fought game, eventually overcoming the opposition to win by five points to progress to the final held three hours later.

In the final, they faced off against Haberdashers Askes Lewisham.

In a spectacular first quarter, coach and director of Sport Mark Swales, assisted by Adam Lowles, set St Columba’s up with some rapid offense plays to open up a 16 point gap to lead 28-12.

They maintained the strong offense and some terrific defensive play saw them pull away further to win 79-54 at the final buzzer.

Joint captains Phillip Ball and Huey Glynn-Jones lifted the winner’s trophy.

The MVP award, given to the player with the most points, assists and rebounds and judged to be the player of the tournament went to St Columba’s forward Tom Johnson and this rounded off a tremendous day for the players, coaches and school.