The New Amsterdam (NA) Warriors basketball team once again disposed of their Fyrish rivals with an 82-49 blowout victory in the final of the Mashramani Basketball tournament Saturday night at the New Amsterdam Basketball Court.
Playing in front of their home crowd, Warriors made certain not to disappoint their supporters, the majority of whom stood, encouraging the team, for the entire length of the game due to the absence of seats at the facility.
Warriors got off to a blistering start and lit up the baskets even more under the floodlights. They outscored the Fyrish Fire Hawks 17-10 in the first quarter and rolled over their high shooting percentage into the second period.
Halfway through the second quarter, Fire Hawks only managed to add four points to their opening quarter score and appeared completely shut down, only tossing up “bricks” when the opportunity arose.
Warriors pressed forward, burying more shots on the inside and around the paint. Centre, Randy Richardson, a usual dominant figure in the paint and Guard Theophilus ‘Chevy’ Bess, were the main contributors for the Warriors in the second period and between themselves outscored the Fire Hawks 15-13 in the second quarter.
Richardson amassed a game-high 22 points while Bess was the second highest contributor for Warriors with 17 points.
At halftime Warriors were comfortably ahead, leading 45-23 and the chances of Fyrish coming back from the 22 points halftime deficit seemed nonexistent.
However, Fire Hawks appeared to be revived coming out from the halftime break and took off a significant chunk of their opponent’s lead early in the third quarter thanks to shots from beyond the arc by Rayel Franklin and Joel Fraser.
Though the energised-looking Fire Hawks came out firing in the third quarter, their defence wasn’t doing much to prevent their opponents from scoring and the Warriors managed to extend their lead to 22 (61-39) by the end of the third quarter.
The final quarter placed the icing on the cake of the already one sided affair as the Warriors continued to attack to Fire Hawks’ basket. The home side eventually outscored Fire Hawks 22-10 in the fourth quarter prior to the final whistle.
Other main contributors for Warriors were junior national player, Richard Mohandatt, who returned from Georgetown to represent his home side. Mohandatt assisted with 10 points.
Fraser was the lead scorer for the Fire Hawks with 13 points, while his teammates Franklin and Desi Douglas contributed 11 and 10 points respectively.
For his consistent contributions throughout the tournament, Richardson was presented with the Most Valuable Player Trophy.
