By Floyd Christie
The coordinators of the National Schools Basketball Festival (NSBF) added frosting to an already entertaining tournament when they selected the cream of the crop to face off in the NSBF Junior and Senior All-Star games Saturday evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

The top performers from the tournament’s opening rounds were dissected into two teams in both the Junior and Senior categories and positioned to bump heads as the Stars from the visiting out of town teams met the Stars of the teams from Georgetown and surrounding areas on center court in a clash of skills that fired-up the Sports Hall.

The feature clash between the Seniors saw Visitors dismantling the Home team 78-66 in a contest that had just the necessary ingredients to overflow the brim of entertainment and tension, causing supporters on both sides of the fence to up the noise level with ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ when their stars excelled and disappointed. The Visiting stars came out shining and broke away unanswered in the first five minutes of the game to muster a 13-0 run until Junior National point guard Richard Mohandatt announced his presence by pulling the trigger twice over the visiting defenders just outside the arc to register the Home side’s first six points on the scoreboard.

It was evident from jump ball that the Visitors were out-rebounding the Home team and this cost the latter dearly as the game progressed. Even though they hauled their way back into the game with a 6-0 run at the end of the first quarter, that still was not enough to take them ahead of the Visitors when the opening quarter ended 19-16.

Visitors’ Dave Plass took his team off the blocks and sent them sprinting ahead once more when he opened the second quarter with a flaming three pointer, while their opponents opened the second in similar fashion to the first period.

As the Visitors were held scoreless halfway through the second period, Marlon Pollydore worked his way through the Home team’s feeble inside defence with back-to-back baskets to push his team’s score to 31 as compared to his opponents 19.

Assisted by a crafty in-and-out cross over by Dominique Douglas that left Mohandatt in no-man’s land and had the fans ecstatic when the pull-up jumper that followed came out the bottom of the net, the Visitors maintained a 10-point lead at the half-time buzzer despite some last minute points from the Home team.

The Home team’s poor low post defence continued when the second half began with the scores 38-28 and the visitors continued to play as a unit, taking it to the hole and ripping the offensive boards for the put back attempts.

Sensing the urgency to get back into the game before it was too late, the home side began to look like a totally different team, turning up the defence and forcing turnovers which were quickly converted into baskets.

This offensive burst from the Home team resulted in the game being leveled on 50 points after Mohandatt seemed to be reloaded from three-point range and netted a vital shot from outside following his silent spell where he threw up a few bricks.

Not only did the home side tie, but they sniffed the lead for the first time as the clock wound down on the third period which ended 55-53 to the Home team’s advantage.

The game was on in the fourth and Dominic Vincente finally returned in the game after netting some essential shots in the first half for the Home team. Vincente’s aggressive drives to the basket kept drawing the fouls and after making-good the free throws, he kept his team in close pursuit of the Visitors after they lost the lead early in the fourth to a Visitors’ run.

Vincente’s efforts brought his team back to within one in the closing minutes of the fourth, but with not much help on the offensive or defensive end from his team’s forwards the Visitors built on their minor lead and closed out the home team.

Mohandatt and Taquain Vieira led the home teams scoring with 18 and 14 points respectively, while Vincente added a vital 13.

The Visitors’ scoring was piloted by Plass’ 19 while the games MVP Linden Fraser and Douglas tottaled 18 points each. Fraser also pulled down an astounding 29 rebounds and Pollydore assisted with 14 points.

Georgetown’s Juniors also suffered the same fate as their Senior All-Star counterparts when they lost to the Visitors 53-49 in their All-Star match-up earlier in the evening.