Myerscough’s U17 basketballers begin first European adventure
- Published
- Wednesday 13 November
Myerscough Basketball's under 17s have played their first ever overseas fixtures in the European Youth Basketball League.
Myerscough has competed at the Under-20 level since 2018, but last weekend, a Myerscough Under-17 team headed to Tallinn, Estonia, to compete in the stage 1 of the competition for the first time.
The under 17 squad beat Tal Tech Basketball of Estonia in their first fixture, before playing further matches against Fryshuset (Sweden), SKM Lions (Lithuania) and YMCA Tampere (Finland).
The students acquitted themselves very well and were excellent ambassadors for Myerscough College.
Myerscough Head Coach, Neal Hopkins, said: ‘’Adding a further team into the EYBL has been on the cards for a few years and it’s really pleasing to finally be taking the step,”
“Playing in Europe has been a big commitment of ours over the years and being able to extend the opportunity to more players, especially our younger guys, is something we are really excited about.”
Myerscough became the first British basketball team at any level to win a season-long European competition when it won the 2019-20 regular season championship. The Academy has reached the SuperFinal in each season in the league.
Neal added: “We want our players to have the opportunity to play two seasons of European basketball whilst they are with us, which was something afforded to the likes of Amari Williams – this was huge factor in his development.’’
The EYBL is one of the premier FIBA competitions for juniors and features renowned teams from across the continent.
The competition is held over three weekends, with teams playing a series of games in each stage, against sides from different countries across the continent.