Charlestown/Albouystown blew away North Ruimveldt 70-52 Tuesday evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall to take game one of their best-in-three semi-finals of the Georgetown Inter-Ward Basketball Championships.
Looking at the North Ruimveldt side who are the defending champions of the event, anyone would have judged them as clear winners since they have the better players compared to the ‘ghetto boys’ who have only three active players on their team.
However, what the team was lacking in skill they made up for in courage and went out seemingly bent on winning the half a million dollars first prize.
So exciting was the game that fans were kept on their feet from jump-ball as Charlestown wasted little time in racing ahead to a 17-7 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Though being outplayed, North Ruimveldt fed off the exploits of their key player, Andrew ‘Mr. Dunk’ Ifill who has been their ‘everything’ in the tournament so far. Ifill did all that he could but Charlestown knew that if they could contain the well built forward and lockdown the others they would have the game in the bag and so they did.
Rising star in the tournament point guard Rodwel Fortune along with the sensational Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts and Alwyn Bellamy were the forces behind Charlestown’s victory.
Fortune dazzled the crowd with his antics after evading defenders with his cross-overs and ‘And 1’ plays. But, unfortunately, his involvement in the game came to an end just as the second quarter was coming to a close after he collided with a few of the North players and got his mouth ripped, requiring attention from the medic on hand.
Tempers flared between the two sides over the incident and after the smoke settled, Charlestown was ahead 32-21 going into the second half.
The north side showed that they would not go down without a fight in the third quarter as they made use of some silly turn overs by their opponents to come within single digit for the first time since the early stages of the first quarter.
They would have to thank Ryan Stephaney’s ‘And 1’ play with the scores being 54-44 that brought them within eight points (54-46) but Charlestown were able to regroup after a time out.
Ifill and his troops recognizing that they needed to make a move quickly, began another relentless attack but Charlestown point guard Devon Persaud’s back-to-back three pointers with four and a half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter drove the nail into the coffin of the defending champions.
Darcel Harris and Ifill tried desperately to get close once again, but Roberts, who manned the glass and Bellamy along with Persaud countered every move to seal what was deemed as the biggest upset of the tournament.
Roberts ended with a double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds) along with three steals and one blocked shot. Fortune though his time on the court only lasted the first two quarters due to injury, had 14 points inclusive of two three pointers and six steals while Bellamy and Persaud both contributed nine points.
Ifill once again turned in a show-stopper performance but this time in a losing cause, slamming in a game high 23 points and grabbing nine rebounds.
None of the other North players touched double figures and several of them had the next highest score of five points, including Darcel Harris, Ryan Stephaney and Damien Liverpool.
Game two will be played on Saturday and it will be win or go home for the defending champions since Charlestown will be looking to close out the series.
