BASKETBALL ace Tyler Baines had a bitter-sweet time at the Lord's Taverners National Junior Championships.

Captaining the North West under-15s for the first time, the Barrow
14-year-old enjoyed an outstanding individual tournament, but had to settle for a bronze medal when his side were dumped out at the semi-final stage.

Tyler amassed a personal tally of 47 points in four group stage matches as the North West beat eventual tournament winners Scotland 22-18, Wales 16-10, London 26-14 and South East 33-10.

He then led them to a 25-19 quarter-final triumph over Ireland, scoring 13 points, but Scotland got their revenge in the last four clash with a narrow 20-17 victory.

The North West trailed 15-5 at half-time against Scotland, and although they had the better of the exchanges in the second half, they couldn't over-turn such a deficit.

After scoring another six points in that match, Tyler then posted 10 more as the North West won the bronze medal play-off 26-21 against Wales.

The competition was watched by the majority of the GB Paralympic Basketball squad, who fly out to Rio this month, and they must have been impressed with Tyler's displays.

"To captain the North West has been a great honour and I am extremely proud of our region's performance over the weekend," said Tyler.

"We have lost our trophy that we have held for the last three years and we will do everything we can to get that back next year. It was great to be supported by our Paralympic heroes and we wish them all the best for Rio in September."

Tyler's dad Mark added: "The boys have done really well over the weekend. The North West are going through a transitional period at the moment in both the U15s and U19s.

"It was a bitter pill to swallow getting beat by Scotland in the semi-final as the Scottish coach is also Tyler's U15s league team coach (CWSC Phoenix Dragons).

"The GB Olympic squad were brilliant with the kids over the weekend, offering advice to all the players and cheering the squads on.

"On a personal note Tyler had an outstanding championships and if they had gone on to win gold he would have been the only child in the history of the competition to win four golds in a row.

"He has done remarkably well and he still has years ahead of him in this sport. He has been involved for so long yet he is still only 14.

"Tyler has trained for the last three years with (ParalympicsGB squad member) Gregg Warburton for the North West and it just goes to show that the dream of Tyler's to be involved in the Olympics is still well and truly alive."

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