The Thomian under-17 team defeated Royal by one point in a thriller
S. Thomas’ College Mt. Lavinia regained the Rt. Hon. D.S. Senanayake Challenge Cup by defeating archrivals Royal College 71-54 on Saturday night (23) at the Sri Lanka Air Force Indoor Basketball Complex. Old Thomian Dr. Gehan De Soysa who played for STC from 1984-87 was the chief guest.
Defying all odds, the Thomians put on a magnificent show to remember for generations against the valiant Royalists, who never gave up until the last gasp with plenty of injury concerns.
The School by the sea had complete dominance throughout the encounter and never let the lads from Reid Avenue lead the game.
The Thora lads always maintained at least a lead of a single point all the time. Interestingly, they had three players coming in soon after a tough rugby season with deputy skipper Yehan Bulathsinghalage and Mohamed Hakeem ganging up to annihilate the Royalists from all corners of the court. Yehan 'Bula' Bulathsinghalage was the highest points scorer with 26 under his belt . He was last year's overall highest scorer as well, with 21 points. Thomian skipper Thishan Perera was the silent hero, who calmly and composedly marshalled his boys to victory against their rivals after 2019.
S. Thomas’ also fielded the nippiest player of the encounter, Shadrach Jayasinghe who totally bamboozled the Royal offence and defence with his lightning fast moves around the big boys.
On a seriously concerning and despairing note, Royal College had to face almost seven injuries sustained to their players, including skipper Senu Ratnayake and his deputy Dulina de Silva. However it was heartening to witness both Ratnayake and de Silva continuing to switch in between medications to continue play until the last whistle under tremendous pain. The Thomians too had to face a couple of injuries, especially due to extreme humid conditions at the courts. The sportsmanship, never-say-no spirit, and attitudes shown throughout the game by both teams was much appreciated by the spectators, who flocked to the Air Force court in numbers which exceeded capacity with a jam-packed crowd in attendance.
Prior to the main game, the under-17 and old boys’ encounters took place.
With this year’s win at the 18th edition of the Royal-Thomian Basketball encounter, S. Thomas’ rose up in the trophy tally with 11 wins to Royal’s seven. The encounter for the Challenge Cup was inaugurated in 2003, with STC dominating the first seven years, and later, Royal bouncing back to win five in a row. Matches were not held in 2016, 2020, and 2021.
