By Rawle Toney
The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport on Monday bounced off the Linden leg of this year’s Mashramani Inter-Schools basketball competition at the Mackenzie hard-court.
The competition will see eight secondary schools in the mining town vying for top prizes.
On the opening day, Mackenzie High School (MHS) demolished Wisburg Annex 67-25 while the Christianburg Wismar Secondary Multilateral (Multi) got past Wisburg Secondary 26-20.
The tournament is being used by the schools in Linden as a warm up for the annual Victory Valley Royals Inter-Schools championship which is considered the “Holy Grail” where schools basketball is concerned in the community.
MHS are the defending champions for that tournament and they sent out a strong message from early by blowing out the Wisburg Annex team.
They led 26-15 at the half despite not playing with some of their better players including rising star Akeem Kanhai.
For the victors, Shane Murray and Parish Cadogan each shot 12 points while Maverick Angel had 13 points and Gavin Gasper six for the losers.
In the second game of the day, `Multi’ were made to fight hard to get past Wisburg Secondary after leading 14-12 at half time.
But through the efforts of Ryan Crandon’s 12 points, they held on for the win.
Only Jamaal Beaton touched double figures for the losers with 11 points.
The tournament is set to continue today at 14:30 hours with another double header at the same venue.
Game one will see the Linden Technical Institute (LTI) coming up against the Linden School of Excellence while New Silver City Secondary will clash with Linden Foundation Secondary in the second game.
