
York Vikings Basketball Club
2024-2025 Leeds League Division 2 Season
6 April 2025

The addition of several uni players to Team 1 and several players joining in the offseason, let to a team restructure and a strong second team, with a few Team 1 players from the previous season strengthening the squad, the outlook for the team was good.
In the first game Vikings played against Halifax Cobras taking a dominant win behind previous years Team 1 players Jamie Boynton and David Avery and Rookie Sam Thornhill. The team followed up with another win against Spen Valley Vipers Black. In their third game Vikings faced Harrogate Raiders first team, that had added former Viking Sam Dobson to their squad. The game was a hard fought low scoring affair, with Vikings facing their first loss of the season. Vikings bounced back in the next match before facing local rival Jorvik Warriors 1, who had a much improved team featuring previous years Viking Premiership MVP Jake Butler (also a National League D3 player). The game was close until the last quarter, where 5 consecutive mistakes by Vikings players led to Warriors taking the win. Vikings finished 2024 with 2 more wins and 1 loss.
However, the team lost Lloyd Bickerstaffe to injury (in a Team 1 game) and Asher Lynch temporarily moved away after the first game in January. Matt Theakstone also missed January and half of February with an injury. On the other side Stefan März joined permanently from the third team and Jacob Hancock joined the Vikings in the new year.
In the first game of the new year Vikings won, before struggling with absences and losing the next 3 games against Leeds Lithuanians and Calderdale Hawks (twice). Things did not get easier, as Vikings next faced Harrogate the current league leaders. With the majority of players unavailable a number of Team 3 players stepped up to play the game. A strong team performance by Harrogate meant they won by 41 points. Following that game Vikings travelled to Jorvik Warriors who needed to win with a big difference to win the league over Harrogate. Vikings struggled once more to get Team 2 players, and a number of Team 3 players had to play up. On the other hand Jorvik chose to bring some additional national league players from the Teeside Mohawks (associated team) to secure the win. This resulted to one of the biggest loses in Viking history.
Despite the 5 game losing streak, Vikings managed to finish 4th and had to face 5th place Calderdale Hawks in a best of 3 playoff series. The Hawks had managed to beat Vikings twice during the regular season, so it was a tall order for Vikings to win the Round.
Vikings managed to field a strong team for the first game and thus got the win behind a strong team effort and 5 players (Jonny Copley, Stefan März, Sam Thornhill, Matt Theakstone and Mohcen Cheref) scoring double figures. For the return game only 7 players were available with several key contributors from the first game missing. Things looked tough and the Hawks started out strongly, before the Vikings dug deep and managed to secure a comeback victory and make it to the Semi Final.
In the Semi Final Vikings faced rivals Jorvik Warriors. Several key players were unavailable again, so Andy Capes joined the team, while Vali Moldovan and Seb Shepherdson played up. Vikings started out strongly taking a 10 point lead. However, a press in the third brought Warriors back in the game and they managed to keep the momentum into the fourth and taking what looked like a comfortable lead. An amazing comeback attempt with a barrage of 3s by Vikings was not enough to take the win, and the Vikings season finished.

