Wins for Bears, Pinelands in Club Challenge

By Morissa Lindsay

East Avenue Realtors Young Bears fought hard and registered a thrilling three-point 47-44 victory over Senators B when the Co-operators General Insurance Barbados Amateur Basketball Association Club Challenge continued last night at Belfield in Black Rock.

It was a keenly contested defensive-oriented encounter between the two teams but the Bears’ willpower gave them the edge over the Senators with a mixture of young and older players, in the second and final encounter of the night. After each quarter the scores read 10-8, 15-20, 34-30 and the final 47-44.

Ras-Dashan Burgess with a game-high 15 points and teammate Christopher Sandiford with a total of 14 led the scoring for the Bears. Kyhia Dyall was the top contributor for Senators with 19 points in what was a very physical match-up.

The mere fact that just two points separated Bears from Senators showed just how strong of a game it was inside the key as there was a lot of physical contact as the referee allowed the ballers to play. Most of the points scored were mostly outside of the paint as defensive blocks were tremendous from both sides around the basket.

The level of aggression made the match even more intense and it was Spartans who set the pace with a ten-point lead of 25-15 over the Bears at halftime. What Bears had in their favour was a crop of young players who covered the length of the court well and appeared to have more in the ‘tank’ than their opponents.

 

They all put in a tremendous effort to stage a comeback to 22-24 and went on to equalize 24-24 compliments of a shot from Nicholas Bishop who accounted for five points.

Mention must be made of the female player on the Bears men’s team and perhaps the only female in the entire competition, Rebecca Simpson. She played well and sent the crowd into a frenzy when she nailed a silky three-pointer. It was a great level of resistance shown by Bears and by extension Simpson who demonstrated that she was not intimidated by the physicality of the game.

The third quarter is where the scores were locked at 24, 26 and 28 and shaped what was turning out to be an entertaining match. As the exchanges progressed Bears led 41-38 with five minutes and 13 seconds left to play. The Bears further extended that advantage and were three points ahead 47-44 with nine seconds on the board remaining in the game. That forced Senators coach and former outstanding national defensive standout Dwight Rouse to call a timeout with his team down by three. But any planned strategy came to nothing, as they were unable to stop the Bears.

In the opening match, it was a completely different story as Pinelands B destroyed Hinds Transport Services Pirates 63-28 (19-3, 40-11, 49-16) when they faced off.

Pirates only had themselves to blame with the large percentage of turnovers and steals they afforded the Pinelands B team, who annihilated them with an artillery of good young guards such Kadeem Brathwaite who top scored with 21 points and Anthony Maynard who tallied 15.

Pinelands caused consistent problems for the Pirates who were down 38-11 with a minute to go before halftime. Still, credit must go to Antoine Winter who scored 15 points for the Pirates in a losing effort but never played like a loser.

It was not the best of nights for Pirates generally as their coaching staff expressed displeasure with the calls made by the officiating referees. They felt that justice was not being served with the number of fouls committed by Pinelands players that weren’t called.

After the third quarter, Pinelands had a basically unassailable lead of 49-16. Pirates really struggled in all aspects of the game on the court and whenever they managed to capture those rare fast break opportunities they failed to capitalize. morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb