The East/West Fire Basketball Club recorded its first victory when the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Open and Third Division Leagues continued Saturday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
The East/West Fire players refused to be intimidated by the reputation of the top-ranked Bounty Colts team and pulled off a thrilling one point victory in their Open game.
The all round performance from East/West Fire secured the victory. The team maintained the lead for most of the game with Wendell Warrick’s 14 points and Owen Walton’s 13 leading the way.
Triston Lare and Gavin Beeram top scored for Colts with 15 and 14 points respectively.
Prior to East/West’s triumph, the up-and-coming Third Division Melanie Patriots staged an upset victory over Maccabeus 63-56, but Maccabees senior team was not willing to suffer the same fate and they prevailed over Nets 69-65 in a closely contested Open game.
In the first game of the night, Melanie Patriots stayed closely behind Maccabees who ended the first quarter with a five point lead. But that lead was reduced to one by half time and the scores were leveled by the end of the third quarter.
Patriots continued to apply pressure to the Maccabees defense and they finished the game with a seven- point lead with the help of Maxwell Thomas’s 18 points and Curtley Phillips’s 16.
Yannick Dundas’s 15 points were not enough to push the Maccabees past the Patriots while Darren Samuels and Darrel Levans each contributed 11 points for Maccabees.
The Maccabees senior players then managed to stave off the Nets in their Open game.
Hodayah Stewart had another amazing night leading Maccabees scoring with 27 points while Nilzkiel Yisrael added 14.
Nets were always closely behind Maccabees throughout the game, but they slipped further behind in the fourth quarter.
Some high-quality three point shooting from the Nets brought them back into the game as they scored three pointers in the final minute, but they fell short by four points in the end.
Pelham Doris scored 14 points for Nets while Fabian Johnson pitched in with 13 points.