Mbarara ready to host USSSA-elite schools championship

Mbarara ready to host USSSA-elite schools championship

By Emmanuel Sekago

As secondary schools gear up to open for the first term of the 2023, they should put into mind it’s only sports that kicks start the year in search of talent at the grass root.

We all know that the Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) , the body mandated to run the secondary schools games, cannot be written off among the associations that performed well in 2022, followed by netball, boxing, athletics and rugby.

       Okanya explaining to the members during the meeting. Courtesy photo.

It’s official that the USSSA activity calendar 2023 has officially started with the governing body holding the 4th edition of elite schools championship that will be hosted at Mbarara High school.

USSSA elite schools championship organizing committee chaired by Emeritus Patrick Okanya and deputized by 3rd Vice President Harriet Apolot on Friday, January 6th 2023, held their first preparatory meeting with the top performing schools of last year’s games that will be taking part in the 4th edition.

In that meeting the schools agreed that the tournament should be hosted at Mbarara High school and in this way to acclimatize with the conditions in western Uganda since it’s the region going to host all the USSSA games.

They were also taken through the rules that will be governing the elite championship.

As the championship keeps on growing since its inauguration in 2019 with the aim of helping schools test their new recruits for upcoming USSSA schools sports events, this year’s edition will be residential compared to the last editions.

“Earlier on, it would be easy to manage the numbers of two disciplines or three or four but now the number has picked up, so the organizers think the organization challenges would be higher if we make it non-essential,” said Okanya.

“This time we decided to make the competition rotational, by taking it to western Uganda because in 2023 all USSSA competitions belong to them,” he added.

Going by the history of the competition, the first edition had only two disciplines football and netball, the second edition basketball joined football and netball while the 3rd edition had four sporting disciplines.

And this year’s edition will have eight and will be played in three days, namely; football (boys and girls), basketball 3×3, basketball 5×5, table tennis, handball, volleyball, badminton and netball.

The following sporting disciplines netball, football, basketball 5×5 and volleyball, each will have top eight performers of last year in USSSA ball games II, USSSA football competition and USSSA ball games one while the new added sporting disciplines, basketball 3×3, badminton, table tennis and handball will be represented by the top four teams of 2022.

However, the other secondary schools that might want to participate in this year’s USSSA-elite tournament should be on standby if any of the top teams meant to feature fails to commit by payment before January 13th, 2023, as per the deadline day.

Meanwhile, last year’s USSSA-elite schools competition was hosted by St. Mary’s Secondary School – Kitende and this year, the residential tournament will be held between January  25th to 28th at Mbarara High School, and schools going to participate in football will be free to make eight substitutions but they must be born of January 1st 2004 or later.

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