– Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust take game one in dramatic fashion
Just when basketball fans thought they had seen it all in this year’s Georgetown Inter-Ward Basketball Championships along came Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust and South Ruimveldt who played their hearts out.
But as they say, there could only be one winner. Wortmanville came from being as much as 14 points down in the fourth quarter to beat South Ruimveldt 79-75 in game one of their best-in-three semi-final on Thursday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
Every second of the 40-minute game was nothing short of effervescent as the two sides knowing that $500,000 was on the line, put every single drop of energy into the contest.
Wortmanville came out red hot and raced away early in the first quarter with Royston Siland, Naylon Loncke and Devon Cameron setting the tone. However South Ruimveldt through Clarence Bennett and Dane Kendall rallied to lead by one point (21-20) going into the second quarter. South Ruimveldt’s guest player and star point guard Steve Neils Jr. was introduced with his team leading 33-29. His presence was immediately felt as he begun to penetrate the lane, using his excellent ball handling skills to get by the Wortmanville defenders. At half time the scoreboard read 39-35 in favour of South Ruimveldt. In the third quarter, Wortmanville played their worst basketball of the night, making several key turnovers.
Unlike the first two quarters where they were running plays through Siland (who was enjoying a good night at the bottom against Kendall) for some strange reason they stopped allowing South Ruimveldt to outscore them 24-16 and go into the final period leading 63-51.
Despite this, Wortmanville never let up and continued playing hard, hoping for a change in fortunes.
The drama began to unfold with two minutes, 47 seconds remaining and South leading 73-64 after Mart Trotz sunk a three pointer to bring Wortmanville within nine points.
Trotz again came up big with one minute, 26 seconds to go and his side was only down by three points, 75-71. At the inbound by South Ruimveldt, Trotz once more picked up a steal, was fouled and sent to the line to shoot two free shots; making the first and missing the other (75-73). However, Devon Cameron came up with the rebound and he too was fouled and he made both shots to tie the game at 75.But Cameron was not over as yet as he took another steal and scored the lay-up and for the first time since the first quarter, Wortmanville/Werk-En-Rust would take the lead with just under one minute to go in the game. The South team had several chances to come back into the game but they would have to blame their poor shooting form from the free throw line. Neils Jr. had a chance to bring his side back to within two points, but he missed both shots and then the crowd engulfed the court to celebrate with Wortmanville for a well played game.
Cameron played his best game of the tournament. He hit six of his eight shots from the field with the same from the free throw line to finish with 19 points, four rebounds and one steal.
Team captain Loncke also finished the game with 19 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals. Siland clinched his third double-double of the tournament, scoring 11 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and taking five steals. And the winning team’s hero of the night Trotz had nine points and two rebounds.
For South Ruimveldt, Clarence `Picky’ Bennett had 19 points while Neils Jr. scored 13 points, pulled in seven rebounds and had four assists.
Kendall grabbed 10 rebounds along with his stubborn 11 points scored.
Game two in the series will be played tomorrow.
