IN spite of completing a season in which victories were hard to come by, there were still reasons for Weymouth Raiders to celebrate at the Exeter & District League’s awards presentation evening.

Rising star Jordan Daniels won the league’s young player of the year award as well as finish- ing runner-up for the title of Division Two’s most valuable player.

At just 17, there is no doubt Daniels has a bright future ahead of him.

Sadly for Weymouth, Daniels has secured a scholarship to a top basketball academy in the Lon-don area, where he will complete his academic education next year as well as benefitting from more intense competition and coaching.

Raiders are the third men’s team at Weymouth and aim to develop young players to move on up to the Cowboys and the Bandits.

As such, league competition against much more experienced teams can be very tough and this season they managed just three wins in 17 games.

However, they were voted by the other teams in the league as winners of the Fair Play trophy, which coach Andy Black-wood collected at the awards evening.

Blackwood said: “I was delighted to collect the award on behalf of my players.

“The fact that we were voted for by the other teams is very pleasing as I think it demonstrates that we played every game in the right spirit and continued to compete to the final buzzer even when we were on the wrong end of a disappointing scoreline.

“There were several games in which we dug deep and came back in the third and fourth quarters to worry our opponents.

“I think the other teams respected that tenacity and sportsmanship.

“I hope this award will give our players another little boost before the new season begins in the autumn.

“We’ll be sorry to see Jordan go, but we wish him every success in the future and look forward to welcoming and developing new young talent to take his place.”