Albouystown/Charlestown thrash defending champs

May 21, 2009 Sports

– as defence smother North Ruimveldt

Dwayne Roberts

Rodwell Fortune

By Edison Jefford
Prominent basketball journalist, Vince Thomas once said: “when the stakes are raised, performances and players count for more as role players become household names, stars become superstars and superstars become legends”.
The stakes are high in the HJTV and Lens Craft Inter-Ward Championships and Rodwell Fortune could be well on his way to becoming a household name with his scintillating act at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall Tuesday night.

The Albouystown/Charlestown point guard destroyed North Ruimveldt in the first half of game one in their semi-final best-of-three battle, before an elbow to his mouth, just before halftime sent him out the game for the night.
Fortune finished with 14 points and six steals to support leading scorer Dwayne ‘Sugar’ Roberts 16 and nine rebounds as Albouystown/Charlestown took a 1-0 lead in the series with an eventually comfortable 76-52 victory over North Ruimveldt.
The defending champions struggled against Albouystown/Charlestown’s stifling pressure defence that restricted Fortune’s opposite, Darcel Harris to merely five points as Andrew ‘Mr. Dunk’ Ifill led with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Fortune broke out with an energetic pace that placed him all over the ball in the first period of the game. He single-handedly out-hustled the opposition with aggressive defence and sporadic clinical offence that lit up the renowned arena.
North has to be blamed for their poor free-throw shooting in the first quarter that limited their offensive options.
Senior national players including Harris, Ifill and centre Damian Liverpool were among those that missed attempts.
The poor free-throw shooting trend continued all night as they merely made 17 from 28 attempts on the charity line.
They wasted nine alone in the first quarter that Albouystown ultimately dominated to take a 15-7 lead at the end.

The teams wrestled to three scoreless minutes in the second period with Fortune secured on the bench.
A giant ‘two-handed’ dunk from Ifill off an assist from Harris five minutes before halftime seemed to have resuscitated North.
The defending champions improved their defence to combat Albouystown’s offence and clawed to a six point (22-16) deficit but Fortune returned to the game and the tempo and momentum instantaneously returned to Albouystown.
Fortune excited the crowd with two ‘round-the-back’ dribbles that sent both defenders in the opposite direction of the ball as he finished both plays to help his team to a 30-18 lead before tragedy stepped in with 2.6 seconds left.
The point guard that played into the hearts of many fans was apparently bumped into the elbow of his team-mate, Collis Pluck and was forced off the court with blood oozing out his mouth.
The unfortunate injury infuriated Albouystown/Charlestown supporters, who thought that the accident was deliberate and aimed at putting Fortune out the game but the absence of a foul call meant that the act did not originate at North.
Albouystown went into halftime leading 32-21 as talk of an offensive collapse in the last half of the game dominated the courtside ‘gaff’ at the break, but Albouystown proved the depth of true champions when the opposite occurred.
The team took its biggest lead of the game with five minutes gone in the third period with a 44-24 points’ advantage.

North fought in an effort to stave off embarrassment when the deficit became 14 (51-37) at the end of the quarter.
The fight continued for North as positive results poured in; Ifill led the defending champs on an 11-3 run in the first five minutes of the final period and the lead was down to six with the game heading for an interesting finish.
However, Devon Persaud landed back-to-back three-point jumpers keeping Albouystown in the lead.
North never had the courtesy of playing from the front in the game and soon became the underdogs as fans routed for their rivals.
North suffered another offensive collapse in the final five minutes of the game owed to a quality opposing defensive strategy targeting Ifill and other key players. The rest is now history as Albouystown eased to an emphatic win.
Thomas’s quote that was alluded to earlier also included the opposite of what was quoted above: “And oh, stars turn to goats, flaws are scrutinised and legacies are tarnished” the writer said. The teams meet again Saturday night.
South Ruimveldt and Wortmanville/Werk-en-rust are scheduled to clash tonight in game one of their semi-final. Wortmanville have had a smooth run to the Final Four while their opponents survived a thriller against Kitty to advance.
The big question that will be answered is whether or not Wortmanville’s ease through the tournament can continue against South.
It is a question worth $500,000, which is the first prize in the big-money championships.