A resurgent looking George-town team displayed a never-say-die attitude to edge rivals Linden 49-48 when action in the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation Inter-sub association competition continued at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall Sunday night.
Having trailed their opponents by as much as 12 points from the opening whistle, Georgetown, on the back of some hard work by Royston Siland, who had a game high 14 points and Stephon Gillis (10 points) stuck to their defensive attitude throughout to come away with the win despite the valiant efforts of Steve Neils Jnr., who led Linden with 12 points.
Linden raced to an early 10-0 lead in the first four minutes of the first quarter, courtesy of a Neils three pointer which forced former national player and Georgetown’s coach Lugard Mohan to call a time out.
The break did little or no good for Georgetown as, on the resumption, the team from the mining town continued to apply the pressure to their City counterparts who finally managed to open their account courtesy of two free throws made by Ryan Stepheny.
The much-anticipated match-up between Neils and Georgetown’s point-guard Darcell Harris did not materialize as even though Harris was there in person, his game was off whilst on the other hand, Neils was dominating the show for his team.
He proved his superiority over his Georgetown opponents when he dribbled the ball from coast to coast to make it 14-2 in favor of Linden.
Georgetown did have a chance to dominate, but their centres namely Kurt `Gypsy’ Elias and Fabian Johnson had difficulty holding onto the ball and whenever they did, they were quickly double teamed which forced turn overs at crucial points of the game.
Gillis was finding it difficult to locate the bottom of the net early in the game but did so with his team trailing 8-16 and when Harris leapt in the air to intercept an intended pass from Duane ‘Sugar’ Roberts to Neils, it clearly showed the intensity of the Georgetown players.
Roberts refused to let such a play humbug himself and his team and on a pass from Hartman when faced with a two-on-one situation with Siland, he did the sole thing of slamming home the ball much to the amazement of the spectators to push his team further into the lead 22-16.
The best was yet to come as on the stroke of half time, Hartman sent a long shot from downtown flush into the net to ensure Linden’s dominance on the game remained intact at the half where they led 25-17.
It was a see-saw affair in the second half with Georgetown’s Pelham Doris taking his team within two points after nailing a three-pointer with less than four minutes to go in the third quarter only to see Hartman out dribble Gillis and score to make it 36-32 in favour of Linden.
Harris then brought back Georgetown closer 36-40 after out dribbling three mining town defenders and finding an unmarked Siland who calmly laid the ball up and when Gillis duplicated Hartman’s buzzer beater with one of his own, Georgetown, who had outscored their opponents 22-15, trailed by only one, 39-40.
At the start of the fourth quarter, it was evident that the team who wanted the ball the most would come out victorious and Georgetown certainly displayed that attitude.
With Neils showing signs of tiring at times during this period, coach Mohan opted to rotate his defence on the danger man from Linden using Doris and Tristan Tulloch who executed the plan of quieting Neils to good effect even forcing turn overs.
Randy James (G’town) enjoyed himself when he blocked Linden’s Anson Durant twice at the commencement of the final quarter. But a resurgent looking Neils still managed to find an open Jason Alonzo who made no mistake with the layup scoring the first set of points in the quarter as Linden led 42-39.
They enjoyed a 5-0 run as Neils sank one from downtown which was closely followed by a put back by Roberts on a Hartman missed jumper.
Siland, who was having a wonderful night at both ends of the court, then hit two of his 14 points on a put back following a missed effort by Gillis from beyond the arc.
Forward Naylon Loncke was totally at sea throughout the game and such was evident when he was faced with a one-on-one situation with Alonzo who timed his jumps to perfection to execute two blocks in succession on Loncke when the latter attempted to take jumps shot instead of driving to the basket.
Shortly after, the game was stopped with Linden leading 45-42 with 4:36 to go in the final quarter following an obstacle being thrown on the court by a spectator in the Eastern stand. Referees Sherwin Henry and Oswald Benjamin refused to take the court for fear of injury not only to themselves, but the players also as fans were reacting to what they felt were inconsistent calls being made by the officials.
After play was halted for five minutes, and with the intervention of law enforcement personnel that were on hand along with officials of the GABF, the game was restarted and it was from here that a rejuvenated looking Georgetown took the fight to Linden.
They out hustled, out played and eventually outscored Linden 5-3 in the final four minutes to come out victorious thanks mainly to the never say die attitude of Siland.
After Siland hit one of his two free throws, James then manoeuvred his way inside the paint to score an easy lay up to put Linden on top 47-43. Loncke then received a gem of a pass from Stepheny and made an easy layup to leave Georgetown trailing by two, 45-47.
Niles then scored one of two free throws following another dubious call by the referee to strengthen his teams lead at 48-45, but Stepheny drove the paint to score another layup despite the heavy defence of the mining town team to have his team trail by one with 30 seconds on the clock.
Following a time out and an inbound pass, Loncke weaved his way inside with 15 seconds left on the clock but his shot did not connect and fortunately for Georgetown, Siland was in position to score on the put back to spark off wild celebrations on and off the court with three seconds to go.
Action in this competition will continue on Saturday at the same venue.
Siland with 14 and Gillis (10) were the principal scorers for Georgetown whilst Neils (12) James (10), Roberts (8) and Hartman 7 were the principal scorers for Linden.
In an earlier game a Georgetown Under-20 side blew away their Berbice counterparts 104-41 on the back of a game high 21 from Travis Burnette. Jermaine Slater (19), Marlon Chesney (14) and Kevin Evans 12 offered support to Burnette.
Okern Stuart was the lone player to reach double figures for Berbice with 10.
