Harrison College, Queen’s College taste both victory and defeat in basketball

By Morissa Lindsay

Queen’s College A were unstoppable and registered a tremendous 11-4 victory over Harrison College B in the Under-19 Boys championship final of the National Sports Council 3×3 Schools Basketball Competition played this afternoon at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.

Led by their talisman Khaleb Gaskin with a game-high seven points in the final, Queen’s College players proved that they were really strong on offence as their talented trio of Gaskin, Khairi Thorpe and Ethan Ellis successfully delivered on their promise to win.

Thorpe accounted for three points and Ellis contributed one as Queen’s College played a total of eight matches in the competition and registered seven wins and a loss.

According to Gaskin, this victory was welcome given that Queen’s College Under-16 team lost their 3×3 final 11-9 to powerhouses Harrison College this afternoon. Credit to the Harrisonians for winning two of three titles up for grabs as they captured the girl’s crown yesterday and added the Under-16 boys today in what was a keenly contested showdown.

After putting in a great effort to deny Harrison College from sweeping the tournament, Queen’s College’s top player Gaskin said: “It feels great to win this final and this is something we wanted badly because when I was coming up playing Under-16 especially, every time we played HC we lost in the final two back-to-back years. Adding to that the pandemic stopped us from playing, so for two years we lost years and I for sure took those losses personally. So, we could not let them three-sweep my QC team.

Tyler Forde of Queen’s College played well but they were unable to defeat Harrison College in the Under-16 final.

“The game plan for us was to keep the ball moving, play hard defence most of all and get the ball to the open guys while attacking when we had the opportunity. Most importantly we made sure to take our shots when the opportunity presented itself.”

After the scores were tied 4-4, Queen’s College through Gaskin broke the deadlock with two minutes and two seconds on the clock in the seven-minute allotted final. From there on the fat lady began to sing early as Queen’s College through Gaskin took the lead at 6-4 and never looked back.

Harrison College’s team comprised Tariq Durant who scored two points while teammates Nayiib Browne and Darin Weatherhead contributed one point each.

In the Under-16 final, Harrison College A pulled off a hard-fought 11-9 victory over Queen’s College A thanks to Nathan Chapman with a commendable six points along with three points from Isaac Griffith and two from Tristan Catlyn.

So competitive was the final that after seven minutes of regular time the scores were tied 8-8 and resulted in overtime play.

Despite the loss and disappointment for Queen’s College Under-16 squad, they did well to reach the championship match with Darreon Griffin tallying six points, Tyler Forde totalled two and Xavier Andre added one.

Coach Tehron King who works closely with many of the players but did not operate as such in this tournament spoke about the talent and pedigree of Harrison College who made it to all three finals.

Barbados Community College lost their semifinal match but Jelani Alleyne played well. Here he attempts to shoot over Harrison College player Nayiib Browne.

“As someone who is affiliated with Harrison College, I am proud because they worked hard and have been training a lot the last couple of months and I am glad they finally had a competition where they can play and show their skills.

“Harrison College is a basketball school and when you walk around during lunchtime at Harrison College, you see a court flooded with old and young players. Harrison College has a great basketball culture and that is why we were able to enter as many teams as we did. We had like 30-something players,” King explained as he deemed the two-day competition a success. morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb