In a night of finals, Kwakwani High School secured a gritty 48-45 win over their all-time rivals, Linden Technical Institute in the Linden Big Ten Conference of the Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) Schools Basketball Tournament at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Saturday evening.
Kwakwani battled aggressively as LTI looked the better of the two teams in the early going, running their offence in a systematic way and gaining a three-point advantage at half time with the score at 26-23.
At the start of the second half, Kwakwani resorted to their old way of playing by running the ball on the offence while playing hard nose defence which disrupted the offence of LTI.
Kwakwani then gained a 10-point advantage midway in the final period before LTI made a late surge. It was however unable to close the gap by the final buzzer.
Leonard Primo carried the offence with 18 points and 11 rebounds for Kwakwani while Dominic Douglas who was the Most Valuable Player last year had a double-double as well with 13 points and 10 rebounds for the winning side.
Joel Webster had 19 points and 13 rebounds for LTI in their hard fought loss.
Switching to the Georgetown final, defence was the name of the game as Marian Academy overcame the Government Technical Institute (GTI) 40-28.
GTI played well in the first half, creating offensive problems for Marian and the first half ended 17-14 in favour of Marian.
However, the second half was vastly different as Marian found their groove especially when their start guard Ruel Ritch took over with his penetrating moves that created opportunities for his teammates.
As Marian’s offence started to flow, GTI could only come within five points of Marian before the final buzzer as Ritch ended with 12 points, eight rebounds and four steals while his teammate Taquain Vieira ended with 12 points as well.
Meanwhile Nikkoloi Smith once again had an all-round game to lead Plaisance Academy to the East Coast Conference title over President’s College (PC) when the final concluded earlier in the evening.
Smith was a one-man wrecking crew, scoring 19 points, grabbing 13 rebounds and collecting eight steals en route to a 55-28 demolition of PC.
With Plaisance being able to shift down PC’s star player, Nyamebekyere Bacchus, who only had two points for the game, Plaisance simply outplayed PC in all facets of the game.
Nduka Horatio also had 18 points for Plaisance in the win while Durvash Roopnarine was PC’s only player in double figures in the points column with 10.
In the first final of the day, Port Mourant Training School (PMTS) defeated Tutorial Academy to claim the Berbice Conference title with a 47-37 score line.
With both sides playing some scrappy basketball, the game basically came down to the team that could finish at the rim and PMTS was the more efficient from the field.
Antonio Aslam scored 25 points, more than half his team’s score, as he dismantled the defence with his quick crosses and speed to help them get the win while Jamal Felix did the same for Tutorial, posting 15 points in the losing cause.
The National Schools Basketball Festival will tip off on July 1 when all the top teams from the various conferences will trade baskets.
