Pinelands, Clapham Bulls into basketball semifinals

As expected, Burger King Clapham Bulls and Pinelands A dismissed their respective rivals last night in the quarterfinals and have both advanced into the semifinals of the Co-operators General Barbados Amateur Basketball Association Club Challenge competition.

It was not much of a contest as Police Sports Club lost 81-71 (23-19, 51-29, 74-48) to Bulls in the opening encounter and Smartmed Pharmacy Challengers were beaten 97-54 (29-10, 56-22, 78-33) by Pinelands in the second match-up played at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.

Not taking anything away from Police or Challengers though because they proved to be good enough to finish in the top eight of the Club Challenge. However, Burger King Clapham Bulls as expected took the early momentum 23-19 at the end of the opening quarter as they squeezed Police on defence and limited their ability to score in the earlier stages of the game.

Coached by Ryan Leacock, Bulls are without a doubt one of the best defensive teams in local basketball and against Police they demonstrated that with a number of steals. It was a good early battle on offence between the two sides and with the score locked 23-23, point guard Andrew Ifill with an eventual contribution of 11 points came off the bench and broke the deadlock.

Ifill successfully chased down an overhead pass and put it away before Tremaine Shaw of Police could intercept. In the scoring department for Bulls were teenager Simeon Maynard with 17 points, fellow point guard Rahiim Gibbons tallied 16 points and Shaquan Newton scored 15 points.

It was at that moment when Ifill gave them the lead that Bulls ran with the momentum and never looked back as they capitalized on the error of Police who were scoring well inside the paint and changed from that to trying to score on the outside where they failed to find the basket effectively.

Their big men Jamario Clarke with a game high 20 points and Dario Cumberbatch with 16 led from the front along with Jare Alleyne 11 and Myrico Morris ten but it was not enough to get past the dominant Bulls side.

The Bulls with a number of rebounds and steals, secured a 10-point lead (35-25) in the second quarter and were just unstoppable on offence. They had a 51-29 lead at halftime. When the third quarter commenced, Police could be heard encouraging each other to take their time which they definitely needed to do knowing the odds were against them.

But life for them was not made easy by Bulls as Simeon Maynard crowned Most Valuable Player at the just concluded BABA Under-19 Summer Jam competition nailed a bucket and put the law enforcement men under added pressure.

Deveron Knight of Pinelands A (with ball) top scored with a game high 26 points against Smartmed Pharmacy Challengers.

They just kept scoring while on the other end they made the Police team toil for every point earned. For example, when Police were down 51-39, they captured possession in the backcourt through Brian Parris who had a defender on his back, he smartly tapped the ball to his left while it was in flight mode to power forward Mayrico Morris for the finish.

That was a smart play by Police as they reached 41 points but at that stage Bulls were in full control of the offensive plays.

Police did not help their case either as Clarke, their biggest man on court intentionally fouled Bulls point guard Andrew Ifill who made two of three free throws which moved the score from 64-36 to 66 with four minutes and 27 seconds left to play in the third quarter.

The Bulls were up by as many as 30 points in the fourth stanza and just when the game appeared to be done and dusted for Police, they managed to cut the deficit by ten points (81-71) because Bulls just did not play much defence in the latter stages of the game.

So, those 15 to 20 points scored in the fourth quarter by Police did not come through much effort and with a bit more time left in the game Bulls would have had some problems on their hands. It was a bit sloppy on the part of Bulls to let Police come from behind and reduce the deficit so significantly. But in the end Bulls accomplished their mission of reaching the semifinals before the final whistle sounded.

The second quarterfinal match between Pinelands A and Challengers was a result probably already known and the commanding 29-10 lead at the end of the first quarter said it all. It was just a matter of how many points Pinelands would score on the night.

The fact Pinelands had a massive 30-point lead (49-19) with less than four minutes to play before halftime spoke for itself. Pinelands coach Renaldo Maughn opted to bring on three of his young Under-19 charges Rasheed Moore, Niguel Jones and Khairi Thorpe to have a go at Challengers.

And why not, given they were in total control of the game and everyone knew how the movie was going to end. Coach Maughn was so confident he took off most of his elite players for the majority of the fourth quarter and Pinelands up 97-54 narrowly missed out on scoring a hundred.

Deveron Knight had a game-high 26 points, Deroni Hurley 15 and Renico Brewster 13. Meanwhile for Challengers, Alex Clarke with 16 points and Todd Bourne 15 were the main scorers. morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb