KUWAIT CITY, Feb 19: Kuwait English School defeated local rivals British School of Kuwait by 24-18 to become champions of the ISAAC Open Girls Basketball League. In a nail biting finish, KES went 22-18 up in the final minute with Kelly Lynch scoring the last 2 points to clinch a hard earned win.
“KES Open Girls have been outstanding all season”. KES beat ESF by a convincing 34-11 in the semifinal. In the League matches on their way to victory, the team overcame ABS by 75-3, NES by 35-17, ESF by 34-19 and BSK by 17-16.
Having won all their league games, KES had a comfortable but competitive win over English School Fahaheel in their semifinal. KES then had the pleasure of playing against their old foes, the British School of Kuwait, in the final of the ISAAC Open Girls Basketball Competition. After narrowly beating BSK in the league match (17-16), and scoring in the last two seconds of the match, it was always going to be a tense match. Both teams displayed excellent guile and skill. In the first quarter only four points were scored, shared at 2-2.
“Clearly both teams were nervous. The basketball would not drop through the net despite plenty of shooting opportunities for both sides”.

In the second quarter KES girls dominated the early exchanges to take a 10-2 lead. BSK managed to get free throws and pulled the score back to 8-10 at the half time interval.
In the third quarter both teams exchanged points up to 14-12. Despite lots of pressure on the BSK defence, the game was still very close going into the fourth quarter. BSK went up 17-16 but KES responded immediately taking the lead 18-17. In the final two minutes the pressure was building again. KES went 22-18 up in the final minute with Kelly Lynch scoring the final points to seal a great and well deserved win for Kuwait English School.
“The team has been led superbly by Lulu Al Huniedi and all the girls have trained very hard for this win.”
KES squad comprised Lulu Al Huneidi, Sonja Madzikanda, Kelly Lynch, Alex Bertz, Shatha Al Huneidi, Mishaal Sharif, Dana Al Khayat, Farah Al Huneidi, Lina Najem, Shahad Awadh, Alice Moumdjian, Jasmin Salem, Zeinab Kawaja, Namrata Soni, Farah Al Sayyed and Lina Malliaroudakis
“Coach Gwilliam is very proud of all the team members, having coached them for the last seven years”.
Students from the U15 team played with the open squad and have greatly improved, especially Shatha Al Huneidi. Sadly we will lose Kelly, Lulu and Sonya, as they go off to university next year. However, the future looks very bright for KES basketball.