Linden and Georgetown does it again…Pacesetters play Royals tonight

Sep 06, 2008 Sports

By Edison Jefford
Linden is quickly becoming the nation’s basketball capital and envy of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association. Tonight, hundreds of patrons are expected to descend on the Mackenzie Sports Club (MSC) court again.

Chris Williams

The magnetism of the Courts Pacesetters Division One team and a homogeneous Victory Valley Royals will pull enthusiasts from both Georgetown and Linden to witness a match–up that Pacesetters has long awaited.
Royals and Pacesetters will meet tonight for the second time in one year in the feature game while Georgetown’s female troupe will play their counterparts from Linden in the preceding game from 7pm at the MSC.
The Georgetown versus Linden rivalry always fuels tempers especially since Royals have the most recent victory over Pacesetters–a 16–point win in last year’s New Era Entertainment championship.
The Linden Amateur Basketball Association–sanctioned event is being staged as a fund– raiser for national women’s basketball player, Nichola Jacobs, who leaves Guyana tomorrow to take up a scholarship in Antigua.

Dwayne Roberts

Pacesetters’ Head Coach, Robert ‘Bobby’ Cadogan told Kaieteur Sport yesterday that the team have not lost a game this year and will be looking to continue that winning form against Royals in the opposition’s backyard.
“We have not lost a game for the year and we are looking to continue that streak against Royals,” Cadogan said, adding that the team will give a few of its recent additions more exposure since they do not anticipate a challenge.
Cadogan said that Travis Burnett, who Royals’ coach identified as a concern yesterday will be unavailable for tonight’s game owing to another basketball engagement in Plaisance on the East Coast of Georgetown.
He indicated that Keon Hyles and John Fraser are also likely to be unavailable owing to the same commitment. However, Kevin Worrel, Jermaine Hamilton and Rayon Cummings were identified as replacements.

Stephon Gillis

“We are basically going to take care of business. We have some new players in the team, so this game will be more or less used as a yardstick to assess the depth of our talent,” the former national coach told this newspaper.
Cadogan informed that his seasoned brigade, minus an injured Naylon Loncke, will be in full force tonight. Those players include national players Stephon Gillis and Royston Siland as well as Hugh Arthur and Clement Brusche.
Royals’ Head Coach, Kester Jeffrey had identified the Burnett versus Chris Williams’s individual match–up as one of the highlights of the game when he spoke with Kaieteur Sport yesterday in a brief interview.
“We stand a reasonable chance. They [Pacesetters] are probably a good team but somehow we manage to beat them–there are some teams that don’t matter how good they are some teams just beat them,” Jeffrey observed.
In other words, he was simply said that Royals has Pacesetters’ number based on his estimation of the teams’ head–to–head clashes. He said they have met three times in the New Millennium and Royals have won twice.

Royston Siland

According to Jeffrey, his team’s bottom will be the biggest worry for Pacesetters. Players such as Dwayne ‘Sugar’ Roberts and Orlando Glasgow are titans in that department while Williams and Anson Durant will lead upfront.
“We are big downstairs. We have a good downstairs and a team that on any given night any player could explode,” he informed, adding that Pacesetters’ guards are his biggest worry but a defensive formula will be worked out.