Kennington Generals came out on top against the talented Hackney Jedi’s by a score of 18-15 in U12 CBL action at the JFS on Sunday.

Both teams featured some of the best talent in the division, with the mercurial Dean DJ DeFreitas-Smith running the show for Hackney and Diego Compus-Peck leading the charge for the Generals. Ā However, it was Kennington’s overall team defense that got them the win in this intense game of end to end action, as the young Generals did a good job on locking in on the free-scoring De Freitas-Smith.

De Freitas-Smith is a fast rising future star, who has an advanced basketball IQ for his age, good handle and the ability to shoot consistently out to beyond 3 (yes, he’s still just 11…) and was able to still finish with 12Ā of his teams 15 points. Ā However the smothering team and individual defense from the Generals, most notably from the long-armed Omar Williams, made every shot difficult and prevented De Freitas-Smith from ever really getting into his usual groove.

Compus-PeckĀ led the way on offense for Kennington with 12 points, cutting through the Jedi’s defense with his hard-to-guard handle and high-arcing layups which found the bottom of the netĀ time and time again. Ā In sealing the win for the Generals, his coach Jesus DaSantosĀ had ample praise for the promising youngster: “Diego is so talented, we get to see him do that kind of thing every practise and he’s a joy to coach. Ā Overall we played better today as a team too. Ā Our spacing was good and we communicated well on defense. Ā Those factors alongside Diego’s play were the keys to this victory over a very good Hackney team”.

Results

Team1234TOutcome
KENNINGTON GENERALS286218Win
HACKNEY JEDI’S552315Loss