The 2016 Sprite Ball Championship is gearing up for an unprecedented wave of momentum to kick start the basketball calendar early next year at the El-Wak Stadium in Accra.
The Ghanaian capital will play host to 26 schools compete against each other in boys’ and girls’ categories respectively in the three day basketball extravaganza.
The qualified schools made it through series of games organized in six regions for spots to compete in one of the most coveted trophies in the West African sub-region.
However, some schools could not make it through the preliminary rounds and Basketballghana.com looks at the biggest culprits who failed to an appearance in the national championship.
Wesley Girls’ High School (Central Region)
The former champions have fallen a long way down from the high summits the school reached in the earlier years of Sprite Ball.
The 2008 winners failed to make it out of the ever competitive region as they fell behind Aggrey Memorial Girls’ team and Mfantsiman Girls’ in the pecking order.
Wey Gey Hey as they are affectionately called, can no longer boast of being a national powerhouse as the school has missed out on the past two editions of the tournament.
The 2009 silver medalist are yet to reproduce star players like Gifty Dedo Nyarko who used her silky skills and savvy basketball knowledge to outwit opponents.
Yaa Asantewaa Girls (Ashanti Region)
Unlike Wesley Girls’, Yaa Asantewaa is yet to completely fall off out of contention at the regional and national level.
However, failure to make an appearance at next year’s championship sure does come as a surprise.
The region’s only recipient of the national title in 2012, Yaa Asantewaa shockingly could not get past Kumasi Girls’ in the bid to secure second spot behind reigning champions T.I. Ahmediyya.