Georgetown fans were busy ‘buying brooms’ yesterday anticipating a clean sweep of Linden in both the male and female tournament of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF)/Wildfire Productions inter-association competition.
Both the Georgetown male and female sides dominated Linden in the first two games, leaving the mining town to play for nothing but pride tonight in the final games of the three-game series at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
The event gets underway from 7:30 pm with the Georgetown female team looking to go 3-0 against Linden after a 73-65 win in game one and a 57-48 win in game two last weekend.
Georgetown’s female starting forward, Natasha Alder has literally carried the team on her shoulders scoring a combined 47 points in the two games with a career best 35 points in game one and 12 points and 12 rebounds in game two.
Alder’s feat would not have been possible without the support of guard Rhonda Charles’ 17-points performance in game one and the 24-points show in game two. Alder and Charles are clearly the ‘go -to’ players for the team.
On the other hand, the Linden female team has relied solely on Shakelia Sampson to fetch the burden of the offence. Sampson top scored in both games for Linden last weekend with Sonia Rodney offering the closest support.
The Linden team has managed good defence in the tournament but will need an adjustment in their offence if they are going to stop Georgetown from fulfilling their intentions – a clean sweep!
In the male tournament, Linden, always a force to be reckoned with, has its entire reputation on the line tonight after two games that they completely threw out the window after taking command.
In the first game, Linden rallied from 20 points down to within two and had an opportunity to send the game into overtime from the free throw line but Nevin Grenville was the culprit, scoring one and missing the crucial last shot.
Georgetown won game one by one point…whew! They were let off the hook, the fish was given passage to swim again and in game two Georgetown took the bait again but unfortunately Linden could not complete the catch.
Linden romped to a 17-2 lead in the first quarter of game two, looking purposeful, tactical and clean on both offence and defence but something went horribly wrong in the second quarter – it was momentum that went a begging.
Georgetown eventually rallied to win from behind by five points (67-62) in game two with excellent leadership from captain Royston Siland who continues to enjoy the unofficial place as perhaps the best all-round player in the country since Andrew Ifill.
Siland scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds in game two with no other player in the Georgetown unit in double figures. Point guard Darcel Harris led with 12 points in game one.
Linden’s centre Jason Alonzo, Terrence James, Trevor Profitt, Alwyn Wilson and Marvin Hartman were the leading offensive players for the mining town in games one and two but the team obviously needs to strengthen its defence tonight.
President of the Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA), Colin ‘BL’ Aaron had promised a clean sweep while his counter-part from the Georgetown association, Chris Bowman had said that Georgetown was the superior team.
The questions to be asked tonight are (a) Can Georgetown complete the job by winning all three games in both categories in what would be a historic feat?
And (b) can Linden dig deep to find that chemistry that it lacked so far in the tournament and make the Georgetown fans take their ‘brooms’ back home?
Those questions will be answered tonight.