Holy Trinity School students Denny Burling and Holly Merchant have been selected to join the England Basketball National Development Programme.
Both 15-year-olds have only been playing the sport for three years since joining Holy Trinity School in Gossops Green and have dedicated an enormous amount of time to developing their understanding and skills in the game.
They both play in the National League for Worthing Thunder and have represented the South East Regional squad where they were identified for the England Development Program.
They have attended training camps throughout the year and after a lot of hard work have now been named in the final 12 to attend a tournament this month in Copenhagen in Denmark.
Holy Trinity School have enjoyed their most successful season in their history.
Having won every age group for boys and girls in the District Competitions, the school teams went on to win County titles for Year 8, Year 10 and Year 11 boys, and Year 10 and Year 11 girls.
These County winning teams then went into the National Cup Competitions, playing other schools from across the South of England. Five of these teams reached the semi-final stages of the respective competitions, playing in Final Four tournaments at the Jesse Boot Wildcats Arena in Nottingham. These finals took place over two weekends in May and included the following schools:
These remarkable achievements are testament to the dedication and hard work displayed by the players, most most of whom had not played Basketball before they joined the school in Year 7!
Several of the players have gone on to play for the local club based in at the schol, Crawley Cagers and also Worthing Thunder in the National League competition.