The Plaisance Guardians engineered an inspiring come-from-behind performance against Georgetown powerhouse Ravens but came up short during the final minutes on opening night of the Pepsi Sonics ‘Refresh your game’ basketball competition on Friday night on the Burnham basketball court.
Ravens held on to win the second game of the evening defeating Guardians 58-49. The nine-point win proved to be quite the task for the Orangemen during the final minutes of the game after a surging Guardians side obliterated the 30-point deficit.
Like their name suggests, the Guardians were tough on the defensive end but what did not work out to their favour was the nature of the gameplay of most of the players on the team. Nearly the Guardians entire roster comprised guards; shorter players that either played point guard, shooting guard or small forward. Ravens capitalised on the Guardians size inadequacy and fed the ball to their post players consistently.
Centre Jermaine Slater was the recipient of many of the interior lob passes and although his conversion ratio was not exactly off the charts, he managed to emerge as the leading scorer with 14 points. Tyrone Hamid added 12 points while Ryan Stephney dropped in 11.
Ravens led 18-6 at the end of the first period and extended their lead to 39-10 by halftime. Guardians seemed to have thrown in the
towel in the second quarter when they were outscored 4-21. But just when the Ravens decided to relax on their lead which exceeded 30 points at one time in the third quarter, some aggressive play from reserves Tabby Matthews and Colwin Nurse helped ignite the Guardians’ comeback.
Former Ravens player Marlon Chesney, who finished with 13 points for the Guardians also caught fire late along with Enoch Matthews who scored 14 points including crucial three-pointers late in the game. Chesney came up with vital steals, but shot miserably from the free throw line during the final minutes when his team had cut the deficit to five.
In the first game Pacesetters rode their home-court advantage to hold off Republic Bank Nets 60-52. After an off first half where they were outscored 8-19, Nets got back into the game to trail by two points 27-29 at halftime.
Nets had no answer for Pacesetters’ explosive guard Travis Burnett, who registered a game high of 20 points, while seasoned campaigner NailonLoncke added 18. Stephon Gillis also added 10 points for the Pacesetters. For the Nets, DrumsonMcCaullay led the way with 15 points, while Mortimer Williams contributed ten points. The tournament continued this afternoon beginning at 16:00hrs with two third division encounters where Panthers challenge the Guyana Defence Force followed by Nets taking on debutants Buxton.
