There was nothing colourful about the Demerara’s Panthers showing against Pepsi Sonics and the Panthers’ dream run in the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Open knock-out tournament ended when they went down 67-78 to the Sonics Thursday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
In the second match Ravens tore the Nets apart 92-45 in the lone third division game. It seemed as though former national point guard and coach of the Pepsi-sponsored team, Mark Agard, had done his homework on the Colours Boutique Panthers after watching them upset the Nets a few nights earlier.
Winning the jump ball, the Sonics went straight into attack mode with Hollingsworth Casey registering the first bucket of the game through a nice spin move inside using his bulky structure well.
At the other end, the Panthers were denied by good defence work as the Sonics went on an 11-0 run forcing coach Deryck Alphonso to call a time out in an attempt to cool the heat from the Sonics’ early blast.
But on resumption, nothing changed really and the Sonics ended the first quarter leading 21-16.
The second quarter saw more purposeful basketball by the Panthers as they tried to claw their way back into the game.
The two ‘Yannicks’ (December and Wade) combined well but still, Panthers trailed by 12 points (42-30) at half time.
Things got worse for the Panthers in the third period when they lost one of their primary players, Wade for most of the game due to a gash on his forehead which required four stitches.
With no suitable replacement to stand up to the heavy inside presence of the Sonics’ players, the Panthers found themselves once again digging their way out of a hole that seemed to get deeper by the minute.
Point guard Jacob Lowe and December’s valiant efforts were not enough to hold off another energetic run by the Sonics who increased the lead at the end of the third quarter.
But the Demerara Colours Panthers team played its best basketball in the final stanza and for the first time in the game, seemed to have the Sonics on the back foot.
Wade returned and was more explosive, and, with bandage wrapped around his head, he took the fight to the Sonics.
Under pressure, Agard’s squad does not look too good but, using their superiority, they were able to hold off the fighting Panthers team.
Power forward Richard Braithwaite and Rawle White scored 14 points each while shooter Trevor Smith and centre Casey scored 13 points apiece for the Sonics.
Wade led all scorers with 20 points while December shot 14 for the Panthers.
Meanwhile, the Nets had their threads torn apart by a hungry young Ravens side in the lone third-division game.
The other third division fixture saw Courts Pacesetters gaining a walk over from Beepat Scorpions.
After a bouncing first quarter that gave the Ravens a 16-10 lead over the Nets, Ravens went on to outscore Nets 19-10 in the second quarter to end the first half leading by 15 points (35-10)
Embarrassingly, the Nets were only allowed to score just nine third quarter points as compared to the Ravens (27).
Ravens high-flyer, Tyron Hamid, was the leading scorer with 17 points which included two thunderous dunks.
Hamid’s support came from Delon Davidson, Jason Cummings and Antwain Benjamin who each scored 11 points.
For the losing Nets team, only Ryan Wilson was able to touch double digits with 12 points.
