These girls really Rock

In front of a large crowd, including MSP Cathie Craigie, local councillors and club sponsors, the Cumbernauld school hosted an under 16 girls and a Senior Womens game against City Of Edinburgh.

First up were the cadettes who are the youngest side in the league by about two years this season and despite a number of quite heavy defeats have shown a fantastic attitude as they make progress on a week by week basis.

The club have developed a large base of youngsters and all have had valuable court experience this year despite the team suffering 16 straight defeats in league and cup competition. They, however, knew this at the start of the season and set themselves the target of winning at least one of their last two league matches.

It looked unlikely that they would achieve this in their penultimate game when despite a promising start, a number of careless errors saw their opponents leading 14-7 at the end of the first quarter. St Maurice's never lost their focus however, and in the second quarter they matched their opponents all the way with the second quarter score 18-19.

The game remained very even going into the second half although both teams became very nervous with the score at the end of the third quarter 41-33 to Edinburgh.

At the start of the fourth quarter it looked like the game was over when the visitors went 13 points up, however, the young Cumbernauld side then pressed right up on their opponents and slowly but surely ate into the lead.

With the scores narrowing the young Rocks players just couldn't get the crucial score to overcome their opponents until the last two minutes of the game when they took the lead and showed real composure to see out the game 52-49. The hall erupted into applause as the youngsters celebrated their first victory of the season as though they had just won the league. For them it was just as important as that and showed the amount of progress they have made over the course of this season.

Team: Courtney McLaughlan (c), Michelle Bradley, Shivani Sharda, Christie Lamb, Taylor McKeown, Anisha Gill, Rhiann Morrison, Anne Dursun, Caitlin McGoohan, Shannon McAuley, Elise Wylie,and Amanda McQueen.

THE big game of the day was the league decider between St Maurice's/Glasgow Rocks and City Of Edinburgh.

The Cumbernauld side were undefeated in the league and had already beaten their opponents in Edinburgh earlier this year. This game was also a rehearsal for the Scottish Cup Final in two weeks with both teams meeting at The Pleasance on March 27.

The local side featuring three schoolgirls from St Maurice's High, Erin McGarrachan, Erin Gilbride and Maxine Bell, looked to be really focussed on the game in the first quarter. Their free flowing fast break basketball saw them go up 28-14 at the end of the quarter. Rona Corkindale and Natalie Chaloner had both done the damage with some clinical finishing in the opening stages.

However, in the second quarter, a combination of good outside shooting from Edinburgh and some slack play from the LadyRocks saw the lead narrow at half time to only seven points.

This pattern of play continued into the second half with the Rocks still dominating the possession but unable to increase their lead. There was now an uncharacteristic hesitancy about their play and nerves seemed to be playing a part in this.

However, in the final quarter with St Maurice's High School captain Erin McGarrachan really stepping up it was the Cumbernauld side who once again found their form and began to impose themselves again.

Suddenly they returned to the kind of play which has been their trademark this season and they comfortably saw out the game by 67-60.

St Maurice's Basketball Club were only founded four years ago but in the that short time they have made great progress and this year teaming up with the Glasgow Rocks Mens Pro team as the LadyRocks they have had a tremendous season being unbeaten in league and cup and now Scottish Senior Womens champions for the first time in their history.

Team: Mairi MacNeill, Natalie Chaloner, Nadelle Strain, Shirley Birch, AilidhHood, Rona Corkindale, Erin McGarrachan, Toni Carvill, Maxine Bell and Erin Gilbride.