The Maccabees Basketball Club recorded their second major win in the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Assoc-iation Bryden’s second division league on Sunday evening when they completed a 33-point victory against Pioneers.
Maccabees got off to a comfortable start and continued their upbeat and unselfish style of play that got them past Georgetown Masters in their last match.
Their offence was given a quick boost when an unlikely character in Marlon Hendricks drilled three three-pointers in the first four minutes of the first half of the game.
Hendricks eventually ended the night with 11 points but it was Devon Cameron who mainly sustained the Maccabees in scoring for the remainder of the game, registering a game high of 22 points.
Hodayah Stewart was also a key contributor in the Maccebees offence and scored 12 points while Randy Burgess added 10 points for his team in their 82-49 victory over Pioneers.
Kenneth Overton was the only player in double figures when he added 10 points for Pioneers in their losing effort.
In the second game of the evening, the Junior Elite players fell to Pepsi Sonics 62-60.
Pepsi Sonics claimed the win of the league by utilizing their customary whole court press, which helped to turn the tables on the Junior Elite players who held a 10-point advantage nearing the end of the first half.
Coach of Pepsi Sonics said that although he had not seen many fruits from his court press early in the game he decided to wait for the right moment to reinstitute it.
Agard said that he saw a golden opportunity to put the press back in effect when opposing coach Julian Haynes replaced all five players on the floor with bench players.
“Although our team didn’t have a chance to practise for the last ten days I know my players had the required fitness to execute the press well and what we did was to wait for the right moment where it would have been successful and that is exactly what we did when we saw a fresh squad on the court,” he said.
The result was a 22-6 run by Pepsi Sonic to take control of the game in the first half.
The Junior Elite fought back and cut the lead as close as four points with 3:11s remaining, but Trevor Smith drilled a clutch three-pointer to put Pepsi Sonics up seven and make all efforts of a comeback seem impossible for the Junior Elite players.
Careless turnovers from Sonics coupled with the desperation of the junior players got them to within two points of the victors before time expired.
Ryan Melville led the way for Pepsi Sonics with 22 points while Trevor Smith added 13 points. Shelroy Thomas, Jermaine Slater and Marlon Chesney were the only players in double figures for the Junior Elites with 16, 14 and 12 points respectively.
In the third and final game of the evening, the Bounty Colts enjoyed a 84-58 victory over Demerara Panthers.
Onica Fraser ended with 28 points to lead all scores for the evening while Kayode Murray added 13 for Bounty Colts.
Griffith ended the evening with 25 points for the Panthers while Yannick December added 13 points.
