North Star Warriors crowned champions after 13-game winning streak!

It turned out to be lucky 13 for North Star Warriors who were crowned Basketball NI Division 1 League champions with their 13th successive victory on Monday night past.

Hugh Barbour and his players have defied all expectations, recovering from a poor start to the season to dominate all the way to the end, finishing the job on Monday with a 51-43 victory over Ballymena to take the crown at the end of a memorable first season.

The Warriors went into Monday’s game knowing their destiny was in their hands after they won their final home game against Ulster Tigers and closest rivals Omagh then lost in front of their own fans on Thursday.

Ballymena did their best to upset the Warriors, even adding a few players from the Premier Division team, but the confidence and momentum was with North Star and they ran out deserved winners, and ultimately champions. 

“We knew we had to get over this last hurdle now because Omagh lost last Thursday night so we knew we had to just seal the deal on Monday,” Hugh reflected. “Everybody came locked in and you could feel that in the car on the way up the road.

“There were plenty of nerves. We didn’t want to get this far then slip up and ruin it for ourselves. That pressure was there and then, when we walked in and seen their squad which had more players, we really felt it then.

“We were losing 12-4 in the first quarter and you could see it was pure nerves, but we just got a time-out took a breath and we ended up taking the lead at 17-12, so we stopped them scoring and we then took over.”

North Star have faced up to challenges of all sizes and shapes throughout this season, and winning that last home game 89-69 against the Tigers was huge for them in taking that one final step to the title.  

“That was the game that myself and the team were more worried about,” Hugh admitted. “They are a very fast-paced team and they started the game making the first eight jump shots and three-pointers, they just didn’t miss. But once we took the lead in that we put the foot down and kept the pressure on them and we had the lead by 30 going into the third quarter. By then we knew we were fine, but going up to half time we weren’t sitting as comfortably as we wanted to be.”

Recovery

North Star were not in any shape to challenge for a league title after a disjointed start to the season when they lost two of their first three games, but hard work and determination by the players and manager saw their prospects turn around dramatically, so much so that come the end, no one could deny them as champions.

“Absolutely. We got 13 straight wins, which is the longest in the league,” Hugh stated. “It’s the longest unbeaten streak, the longest winning streak, the longest home streak and longest away streak, so we tick all the boxes basically.

“Our first three games we lost two and won one. After that last loss we never looked back. We took everything we were weak on, put it into the session and developed on it. The biggest thing for us was that the games were very high-scoring, which meant we were letting teams score too much, so we really focused on the defensive end of things. I think since then we have been the number one defensive team in the league and we were holding teams to 10 points a half at one time.”

North Star’s season isn’t over just yet, as they could potentially win a treble with two other competitions to come. Whatever happens next, the 2022/23 season will be viewed as both historic and important for the future of the club.

“It’s a fantastic step for the guys and the club as whole,” Hugh agreed. “We’ll go into the Premier League next year and that will obviously be more intense but we’ll still maintain a team in this league which will be a development team. The club is just growing. Speaking to the other coaches across the league, they are seeing it as well and they are really happy as well to see the junior programme as well as the men’s team doing well, so there’s really a nice buzz about the place.”