Guyanese males win 20-plus games at CARICOM Championships

Jul 04, 2009 Sports

The Golden Arrow Head was flown proudly at 11CARICOM Championships, the first in Georgetown Guyana, second Kingston Jamaica, third Bridgetown Barbados, fourth Port-of-Spain Trinidad, fifth back at the Sports Hall, sixth Reggae town, seventh Sports Hall, eight Nassau Bahamas, ninth Port-of-Spain, tenth Bridgetown and the eleventh Puerto Rico.
To date two individuals shared the record for the highest score by a Guyanese male at the CARICOM Championship level. Stanislaus Knox Hadmon and Gordon Klaiber 34 points Hadmon vs. Barbados at the Sports Hall, Georgetown, Guyana 1981. Klaiber 26 years later vs. Antigua and Barbuda in Puerto Rico 2007; Hadmon also had 20 plus performances against Dominica 24 points, Antigua & Barbuda 24 and Barbados 22, all achieved in 1981 in Guyana.
At the 1985 tournament in Barbados, Nigel Hinds became the first Guyanese rookie to score 25 points on debut against Barbados in Bridgetown.
The following year 1986 James Brusche, 22 points against Grenada in Port-of-Spain, made him the first Guyanese captain to score more than 20 points at a CARICOM tournament at the 1988 Championship in Guyana.
Auric Tappin 21 vs. Suriname, 25 vs. Antigua & Barbuda, 25 vs. Aruba and at the 1991 event in Kingston Jamaica. Tappin had 22 vs. Barbados and 28 vs. host Jamaica. In the same Championship Wayne Andries scored 23 vs. Barbados and Sean Semple had 21 vs. the Cayman Islands.
When action returned to the Land of Many Waters at the 1994 Championship, Leon Christian scored 24 points against Suriname in the tournament opener which made him the Guyanese skipper with the highest score at the CBC championship surpassing James Brusche’s 22 vs. Grenada.
In 1986 Steven Nurse had 27 points in the semi-finals against Trinidad. Sean Semple’s 22 points vs. Belize was the highest by a Guyanese at the Bahamas hosted Championship in 1995.
During the 1994 tourney in Guyana, Steven Nurse scored 21 points vs. Barbados and Lugard Mohan 21 points vs. the same opponents in the finals, and at the 1996 Championship in Trinidad, skipper Lugard Mohan had 22 points in the opening victory against Barbados.

In Dominica Wayne Bristol had 23 points, Lorenzo Withrite supported with 22 points and in the semi-finals lost to Jamaica, Lorenzo Withrite scored 27 points, Wayne Bristol 23 and Captain Lugard Mohan 20. When the Land of Many Waters lost the third place game against the Bahamas, skipper Lugard Mohan had 22 points, Rawlwin Loncke also supported with 22 and at the 2000 Championship in Barbados,
Deceased DC Jammers and Israel Pro Deryck Boyd had 20 points in a losing cause against Barbados. In the next game when Guyana destroyed Dominica, power centre Lancelot Loncke scored 20 points joining his elder brother Rawlwin, who had 22 against the Bahamas 1996 in Trinidad, as the only Guyanese siblings to score 20 points or more at a CARICOM Championship.
When Guyana defeated Jamaica for the first time at a CARICOM Championship, skipper Lugard Mohan led from the front with 24 points and in a losing cause in the semi-finals against the US Virgin Islands. Lugard Mohan became the Guyanese captain with the highest score at a CARICOM Championship. When he finished with 26 points, the Raven’s swing man surpassed Leon Christian’s 24 against Suriname during the 1994 tournament in Guyana.

In the third place victory over defending Champs Belize, skipper Mohan scored 26 points becoming the first Guyanese player to score 25 points or more consecutively at a CARICOM Championship.
At the 2007 tournament in Puerto Rico DC Jammers Gordon Klaiber’s 34 points against Antigua & Barbuda equal the 1981 Guyana record set by Stanislaus Knox Hadmon, so indeed Lugard Mohan is the Land of Many Waters leading 20 plus scorer at the CARICOM Championship level.
The swing man from the club that organised the first touring team to visit then British Guiana in 1956, topped the list with (7) Auric Tappin follow with (5) Stanislaus Hadmon (4) Steven Nurse (2) Lorenzo Withrite (2) Sean Semple (2) Wayne Bristol (2).
Surely we would love to see – names like Akeem Kanhai, Andrew Ifill, Dwayne Roberts, Steve Neils Jr, Ryan Gullen et al added to the coveted list above, but it seems like only Nostradamus could predict when, because the GABF seems incapable of fielding a team at this prestigious event.
With no respite in sight, the players are the ones that suffer the most. The Land of Many Waters have already missed Championship in Belize (1998), US Virgin Islands (2002), Cuba (2004), Jamaica (2006), now the British Virgin Islands 2009.
Please. to whom it may concern, this kind of thing has got to stop. We have lost our sovereignty in the basketball fraternity in Central America and the Caribbean, but it seems like it’s hard for some of us to say goodbye to yesterday. We live in a new era of sports administration; we have got to start a new chapter.
Charwayne Walker