Opened the year with new gold
Written by Arild Sandven
&ball;5 January 2023
Ulriken’s U18 girls were the only Norwegian team in the Lundaspelen, went all the way without a loss and defeated Danish Aabyhøj in the final minutes of an evenly played final.
– We won here in the U20 class in 2011 with Maren and Stine Austgulen and Emilie Grønås, but lost the final the following year when Maren and Emilie had traveled to the USA, says DuRell Sanford.
He has led the Ulriken girls to international audiences for 12 years now, with the 03 girls’ triumph in the Europa League EGBL and two Scania Cup gold being the biggest highlights.
Then, like last year, they were also in the USA and they also won the Las Vegas Easter Showdown with the same U19 team that won a superior NM gold.
Well, the meritorious coach can take home another trophy in the living room, because Ulriken has neither a clubhouse nor a trophy cabinet. Maybe something to get done in 2023?
Won all seven games
The 05 team with the A-team players Aurora Sørbye and Anna Linnea Hovig Wikstrøm (06) in the lead has Stine Austgulen as coach and Mikkel Kolstad as assistant, but neither of them will be able to participate in the Lundaspelen. Then A-team coach Sanford benevolently stepped in.
It went smoothly from the start. The U18 girls began the new basketball year by distinguishing themselves as one of the best teams in the traditional Lundaspelen.
The matches waste over 2 x 15 minutes of ineffective time, the clock just stops for the last 3 minutes of the 2nd half.
However, Ulriken scored 47.4 points on average per game, clearly the most in his year class – and went undefeated throughout the tournament.
Danish, Swedish, German and Belgian resistance
BMS Herlev, which has been a rival for Ulriken’s 03 girls for several seasons, is one of Denmark’s best teams and won the final in the U15, U16 and U23 classes for girls in the Lundaspelen on Thursday.
Herlev was in the same group as Ulriken in U18 and opponents in the opening match on Monday. But the red-clad men from Bergen gained early control and controlled to 36-20.
Then the Ulriken girls outclassed VGB from Stockholm 50-24 and beat Lugi from Lund 51-34 before it was 57-22 over German USV Braunschweig in the last game of the group stage.
Belgium’s Mercurius Foxes were beaten 59-23 in the quarter-finals and Denmark’s Amager 45-29 in the semi-finals before Ulriken took command from the start in the final against Aabyhøj, who had knocked out BMS Herlev in their semi-final.
Decided in the final minutes
Norway’s representative opened with a 6-0 lead and was ahead 22-15 at halftime, but Aabyhøj came on strong at the beginning of the second half.
The team from Aarhus equalized at 25-25 and had momentum, but Ulriken rose again. Aurora Sørbye made three of four penalties, Lina Blanco added a point and Aurora Sørbye another score:
32-25 and the gold medals were practically secured when the teams went into the last minute of play. It ended 34-27.
– Better skills
– We had some turnovers, the defense failed a bit and we lost some penalties, so they gained momentum. But we finished well, got to the penalty line and traffic and got steals in the defense like at the beginning of the game, says DuRell Sanford.
– Several of the teams we met have more size than us, but our players have better skills, states the Ulriken coach.
MVP, top scorer and «demon» in defence
Aurora Sørbye was named the tournament’s best player and was also top scorer with an average of 19.1 points per game. match, with 28 and 25 in the quarter- and semi-finals as tops.
– I don’t look too much at the statistics, but she is a “demon” in defence, always hard and was obviously the best. Then she has also put in a lot of work to get where she is, Sanford clarifies.
Strict rules, fewer Norwegian teams
The Lundaspelen is always held from 2 to 5 January, regardless of which days of the week the dates fall on. The tournament in Lund in Scania has traditionally had several Norwegian teams, but not in recent years, after the schools tightened the leave rules.
With the tournament from Monday to Thursday this year, it was three school days for the Ulriken girls.
– Several of the girls go to NTG or Metis and get exemptions, for the others we have sent letters to the schools and argued that it is an international tournament, DuRell told Sanford before he and the players had to fly home from Copenhagen to Bergen on Thursday evening.