…as North Ruimveldt, Lodge/Meadowbrook take opening honours
By Rawle Toney
North Ruimveldt demolished Republic Park/Mocha 85-55, while Lodge/Meadowbrook got past McDoom/Houston 85-63, to become the first two teams to record victories in this year’s Hits and Jams Inter-Ward Basketball extravaganza which opened on Saturday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
Playing in the opening game of the double header, the defending champions North Ruimveldt, boasting several of the country’s top players got an unexpected boost with the arrival of national forward Andrew ‘Mr Dunk’ Ifill who is now campaigning in Trinidad and Tobago.
His combination with the likes of national point guard Darcel Harris and national power forward Damien Liverpool was too much for the Republic Park/Mocha team to handle even though they had started well in the initial stages of the first quarter, only being down by four at the end (10-14)
But as soon as Ifill became more familiar with his team mates, the blowout began, with Harris using his lethal cross-overs and swift ball movement and steadily finding the sure hands of Ifill and their linden- based guest player Quincy Jones along with Liverpool.
At the end of the first half, the scoreboard read 33-27 in favour of the defending champions and this type of game would continue throughout the night and as time went by so too did the lead margin as North led by 21 points (61-40) at the end of the third.
In the fourth and final period the Republic Park/Mocha side could have only added 15 points to their third quarter score as North Ruimveldt pounded away at them on both ends of the floor.
The best part of their game came when North Ruimveldt Point Guard Harris sent a half-court alley-hoop pass to Ifill who made no mistake in throwing it down with two hands, much to the delight of the enthused crowd who all saw how the player got the alias ‘Mr. Dunk’.
Ifill would finish with 26 points, seven steals and eight rebounds while his team mate Joe Ifill supported with 17 points and seven rebounds.
For the losers, Trevor Profit, their guest player from Linden who had been the rock of both their offence and defence throughout the night, netted a game high 28 points coupled with eight steals. Khalid Rawud was the only other player from his side to touch double figures as he ended with ten points.
Game two was much more competitive as the Lodge/Meadowbrook side were made to fight hard to earn their win over the young McDoom/Houston team.
Clearly the Lodge side was more experienced since all of its players came from the Nets first Division Basketball Club and this probably was the key to their success, since their opponents lacked that key element.
The Lodge side led at the end of every quarter though not by a massive margin because the McDoom side failed to capitalize on their good run. The ‘Nets’ team were able to stand tall leading 40-28 at the end of the first half.
The third quarter was probably the eventual losers’ best showing on the court as they held their adversaries to only 12 points in that period as compared to 18 which they threw up and would enter the fourth down only by six (52-46)
But once again, inexperience crept in and forced them out of the game.
National Slam Dunk Champion Tyron Hamid showed off his extraordinary leaping ability to feature in what was deemed the ’play of the night’.
Tristan Tulloch received a baseball pass on a fast break and thought he was alone, but to his surprise, Hamid was tracing him all along and practically leapt right over him and swatted the ball away just as Tulloch attempted the lay-up and the crowd went into frenzy.
Hamid fished the game with a well played 13 points while point guard Travis Burnette and centre Jermain Slater both shot 12. Drumson McCauley had a game high 19 points for the victors and Fabian Johnson and Tulloch netted 13 and 12 points respectively.
The tournament continued last evening. Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust was scheduled to play Melanie and Kitty/Campbellville was scheduled to come up against Plaisance.