The basketball tournament held this weekend to launch the new LSBU Brixton Topcats partnership was a resounding success.
The newly christened LSBU Brixton Topcats competed on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October at Brixton Recreation Centre against National League Division 1 teams Leeds Carnegie (Leeds Metropolitan University) and London Mets (London Metropolitan University) - as well as new BBL Franchise Essex Pirates, who play in the top league in the counntry.
In addition, there were two women's exhibition games - which proved to be the highlight of the weekend as first the Lady Topcats, and then LSBU women's team, narrowly beat a strong Leeds Carnegie women's side containing several junior and senior internationals. LSBU new recruit, Ejay Ofomata (MSc International Business) was named player MVP (Most Valuable Player) in the women's games.
Final results were as follows :
Saturday 19 September
Carnegie 67 - Mets 77
Mets 85 - Pirates 83
Carnegie Ladies 52 - Lady Topcats 62
Topacts 55 - Carnegie 63
Sunday 20 September
Pirates 64 - Carnegie 51
Topcats 63 - Mets 70
Carnegie Ladies 86 - LSBU women 87
Topcats 57 - Pirates 59
London Mets won the tournament overall and LSBU student David Ajumobi collected the inagural LSBU Topcats invitiatonal tournament trophy in front of a large crowd on their behalf.
Andy Powlesland, Head Coach of Topcats and Director of the Academy of Sport at LSBU said : "The tournament was a fantastic launch for the new partnership which we hope will result in greater community engagement and local profile for the University - as well as sporting success on court. The value of pre-season competition is about how you react, what you learn, and enabling new players to gel - each team and all the players at the tournament will have learnt a lot prior to the season starting next weekend. LSBU Brixton Topcats aspire to the success that London Metropolitan University and Leeds Metropolitan University have attained in recent years, and events like this continue to demonstrate that LSBU can be competitive at the highest level - our intention is certainly to win next year!"
Details of the Academy of Sport's Focus Sport programme
Posted: 22 September 2009
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