WESLEY BASKETBALL
- Basketball was introduced to Wesley in 1949.
- Even though basketball was played at Wesley the school took to competitive basketball only in 1979. In that year the team was captained by Zubair Doray, a rugby star at that time who also played rugby for Sri Lanka later in his career. He was assisted by Russel Joseph. Some of the prominent players in the team were B. Suresh Kumar, Sareem Jassim and Eraj Ranaweerasinghe. Mr. Jegan Sarangapany an old boy was the coach and another old boy Mr. E. Jayarajah also coached the side during this era. Mrs Ranjini Fernando who was instrumental in reviving basketball was the Teacher in Charge and was indeed the motivator who encouraged many to take up the game
- Some of the significant achievements and milestones of Wesley basketball is given below
1984
A under 17 team represented college at the All Island Under 17 Tournament
1985
The Basketball Team took part in the “A” and “B” division tournaments whilst the under 19 team participated in the Rupavahini Tournament and the “B” Division All Island Tournament
1986
The Under 19 Team Played 8 Matches winning 4 and reached the quarter finals of the All Island Rupavahini Invitation Tournament
1987
Two Members of the Under 19 Basketball Team namely Duminda Nissanka and K. G. Upendra were selected to the Sri Lanka Schools Basketball Pool
1988
Under the Leadership of Duminda Nissanka the team performed well in the All Island Tournaments and won their first under 19 ‘A’ Division Match against Sri Rahula and the team was able to reach the Semi Finals in the ‘B’ Division.
1989
The Under 17 and 19 age groups qualified to the reach the quarter finals stages in the league tournaments.
4 Senior Players were selected to the under19 boys National Pool and Ramzil Noordeen was bestowed the honor of representing Sri Lanka Schools Team in the Senior National Championships.
14 year old Suresh Karunaratne was selected to represent Sri Lanka Schools at the Junior National Championships
1991
Runners Up in the Under – 19 Hapugalle Challenge Trophy Tournament
The Under 17 Team was the quarter finalists in the All-Island Tournament
1992
The Under 19 Team were the quarter finalists at the All-Island Basketball Tournament and was Runners up of the Hapugalle Challenge Trophy
1993
Wesley emerged group winners and qualified for the Semi Finals at the All-Island Tournament
1994
The College did fairly well at the league tournament.
2001
The Under 19 team finished 4th in the All Island Schools ‘B’ Division Tournament and F Devananda was elected to the Combined Schools Squad.
2002
The Under 17 team was placed fourth in the All Island Schools ‘B’ Division Tournament. The Under 19 team finished fourth in the Colombo North Tournament. Wesley was promoted to the ‘A’ Division. Faizal Deva was selected to represent Sri Lanka Schools.
2003
The Under 19 team did extremely well by winning 8 of the 12 matches played that year in 2 tournaments .
2007
At An Invitation Tournament organized by Wesley College the Under 12 team did extremely well to reach the finals and ended up losing to St Benedicts. The Under 12 team also won another Mini Basketball Tournament organized that year.
2015
The Under 13 became Runners Up at an Invitation Tournament
2018
The Under 17 team became 2nd Runner Up in the ‘C’ Division
2019
The Under 15 team became Runner Up in the All-Island Schools ‘C’ Division Tournament. Yoshua Amarasinghe was selected for the National Under 16 pool.
2022
Wesley did extremely well to enter the Semi Finals of the Sri Lanka Schools Basketball Association “B” Division Tournament 2022
In the under 16 Invitation Tournament organized by Prince of Wales College Moratuwa. Wesley was crowned Bowl Champion.
Yoshuwa Amarasinghe was selected to Junior National squad
In the Inaugural Basketball Encounter with St Benedict’s played for 3 trophies in the Under 14, Under 16 and Under 20 category Wesley won the Under 16 and Under 20 trophies with a superlative performance.
Wesley became All Island Schools Under 18 C Division Champions.