Our Lady Rams’ basketball team departed for Super APAC hosted by Shanghai Puxi on Wednesday, January 27. They made a tremendous improvement from last year’s results of 6th out of six teams to 4th out of twelve teams at this year’s super APAC.
Senior Mari Sawamura has attended the girls APAC basketball for 3 years and says she will not continue playing basketball after high school. When I asked her if she would miss anything about APAC basketball she replied, “I will miss APAC because of how close our team becomes on these trips. We are together 24/7 for 5 days, so I have so many memories with my team mates from APAC. I also really enjoy being hosted or hosting other teams, because it’s a good way to get to know new people who also love the same sports as I do. I will of course, also miss the level of competition at APAC. These are all really legitimate teams competing, and it’s really cool watching other teams play and how good they are. It’s just not the same playing an APAC school, as opposed to the schools we play locally in Guangzhou. We finally get to play teams our level that challenges us.”
Sawamura also added that her most memorable part of AISG basketball was “being benched in my first year on the team to being a starter the next 2 years. I had never experienced being benched before, so it really helped me develop my character. I’m proud that I was able to work hard to earn my position on the court. Getting 4th in Super APAC was also a big accomplishment, and knowing that I contributed to that is a great feeling to finish off my last basketball season. The team is also great, we’re all like best friends so I will always remember our togetherness as well.”
Wei Qian Lim, a junior who won All APAC, said that she is proud of how well they played as a team and that they proved to be better than a lot of people estimated they would be.
Caroline Zhang, another junior, feels like all twelve girls worked equally hard and strived to play their best each game. She also said this year’s team was strong because the players put in a lot of time and worked hard which showed to pay off.
Overall, it was a good tournament for everyone and the AISG student body is proud of the accomplishments made at APAC.