It was not one of their prettiest wins, but it was a victory nonetheless for Courts Pacesetters who stumbled to a 65-54 points victory against Colours Panthers in the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Division Three and Open Leagues Thursday night.
The Pacesetters met the Colours Panthers in the feature game at the Burnham Basketball Court in what was the final game for both teams in the league’s Division Three category.
After a lengthy delay, the game finally jumped off about an hour behind schedule and supporters finally got a glimpse of some basketball action after Nets had gained a walkover victory on Eagles in what was supposed to be the night’s opening Division Three game.
The Pacesetters/Panthers contest got off to a flyer with Travis Williams dropping a long range three-pointer to register the Pacesetters on the scoreboard.
From that point Williams pretty much ran cold from three-point range, but his teammates, Richard Mohandatt and Sherwin Kyte stepped up, orchestrating a number of fast break attempts, which were often finished by Mohandatt or Kyte.
The Panthers got possession on many occasions but were not consistent when time came to put the ball in the hole. They thwarted a lot of opportunities to breakaway in the lead after they held the Pacesetters close in the first half which ended with the Pacesetters leading 32-27.
The Pacesetters were on a scoring spree in the third period, outscoring their opponents 20-8 to accumulate their highest lead of the game (20 points), but slowed and fumbled a lot in the fourth quarter which allowed the Panthers to almost come back into the game when they reduced the Pacesetters lead to single digits.
The Panthers did well to come back into the game considering that they were challenging the Pacesetters’ full-squad with a six-man team, leaving one player on the bench as the substitute, but they didn’t have enough left in the tank to better the Pacesetters score.
Kyte and Mohandatt were the lead scorers for the Pacesetters with 18 and 13 points respectively. Pacesetters’ Drexel Amsterdam also assisted with 11 points.
On other end of the court, the only player to reach double figures for Panthers was Haslyn Hooper who netted 18 points.