By Floyd Christie
Christianburg and Central Mackenzie continued their undefeated run in the Mackeson National Super Ward Basketball Championships on Tuesday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and secured places in the semi-finals.
Coming out of a tense 2-point win over Kitty/ Campbellville a few nights earlier, Christianburg started on the back burner in the opening game against East Coast, but managed to turn up the heat in the final half to record a convincing 75-55 win.
The game started off slowly with a low-scoring first quarter but East Coast got the better of its opponents early like it did in previous games. Stephon Gillis and Quacie Newton got the ball rolling with a 3-pointer apiece in the first quarter, pushing East Coast ahead 12-9 at the close of the quarter.
At the start of the second quarter, Christianburg also proved it had some firepower when Shane Lewis netted one from beyond the arc to level the scores, but his shot was quickly matched with another high arcing 3-pointer from Newton. As Christianburg failed to convert fast breaks into points, 3-point specialist Gillis led his East Coast squad to a 33-29 lead at half time with two more of his specialties from the baseline.
The halftime break seemed much needed by Christianburg and the strategies formulated in their playbook at the half proved very productive going into the third and fourth quarters as it ended East Coast’s reign and accumulated a massive 46 points in the second half.
It was evident that East Coast was slacking on defence earlier in the game, and in the latter half the team paid dearly as Christianburg’s Quincy Jones amassed a number of field goals.
He went on to top score with 23 points, helping his team to almost match their entire first half total in the third quarter. Christianburg was able to turn its four-point deficit at the end of the half into a nine-point lead at the end of the third quarter.
With the scores reading 52-43 at the start of the fourth quarter, the East Coast offence couldn’t contribute enough to pull the team back into the game while its defence continued to let them down. Christianburg’s onslaught continued with equal strength as in the previous quarter and by the final buzzer the East Coast team was annihilated by 20 points.
Christianburg’s Nevin Grenville had another productive night with 16 points and Trevor Profit pitched in with 13. For East Coast, Quacy Newton put up 12 points, while Stephon Gillis and Drumson McCully added 11 points each.
Following in the footsteps of their Linden counterparts, the highly rated Central Mackenzie team didn’t hold anything back against the lightly rated Super Ward newcomers South Ruimveldt, dealing them a 69-52 trouncing. In the evening’s second game, it was all Central Mackenzie after the scores were tied on 15 at the end of the first quarter. This lead gradually increased as the quarters progressed.
Going into the fourth quarter Central Mackenzie led 53-42, but it later faced a seemingly rejuvenated South Ruimveldt team which made a last ditch attempt to gain the lead. However, these efforts were in vain, as the Linden team kept maneuvering the ball back into their half of the court and eventually to the basket to seal a 17-point win.
Marvin Hartman’s 21 points led the scoring for Central Mackenzie while Steve Neils supported with 20 points.
Yanick Wade and Enoch Matthews were the only South Ruimveldt players to achieve double figures with 12 and 10 points respectively.
Tonight at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall New Amsterdam will go up against Kitty/Campbellville in the opening game, followed by the feature match-up between Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust and South Ruimveldt.
