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Local ladies suffer heavy loss
SC All-Stars show superiority
Crystal Clary
By Edison Jefford
The disparity between the fundamentals of the national senior women team and the South Carolina Ladies All-Star Basketball team was exposed Friday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall when the Guyanese suffered a heavy loss.
The South Carolina (SC) All-Stars cruised at their own pace to record a 61-35 points’ win with forward Crystal Clary dominating the paint. Clary simply did not have any defensive match and as a result, ended the game with 18 points.
It was a quality exhibit of female fundamentalism in basketball as India Elliot and Krystal Scott both supported Clary on offence with nine points each. The SC Ladies were obviously in cruise control with Coach Larry Davis in driver’s seat.
Timeke Joseph scored 13 points for Guyana while Natasha Alder and Nicola Jacobs went under ten with seven and eight points respectively. Enthusiasm and anxiety were apparent emotions that greeted the local ladies when the emerged.
The national team played five minutes of good basketball in the initial quarter when they were able to hold the SC Ladies to a 2-2 deadlock in a tough defensive bind that the local ladies were unable to untie throughout the goodwill game.
In stark contrast, the visitors were able to break down the Guyanese defence with a sweet transition-pass that was properly executed before Clary made a put-back and Scott a jump shot off a fake to go on their first and sustained run.
The series of those offensive plays took the SC team to 13 as home side remained on two to end the first period. Jacobs took a hit in the first five minutes of the second quarter and that affected Guyana on primarily the defensive end.
Clary went on a rampage with Jacobs out and the SC Ladies’ guard Maya Grady was just content to feed her the ball at the bottom. South Carolina stretched their lead to 20-6 with little less than five minutes before the halftime break.
The first half ended 31-13 in favour of the visitors and the second half was ‘mismatch’ as Davis pulled his forwards when Guyana’s forwards were on and put them in when guards were on for Guyana. It was more-or-less a practical clinic.
The method was geared at helping Guyana recover offensively but even that did not work as Guyana slumped to a 46-23 points’ deficit at the end of the third quarter. Clary worked Guyana’s forwards to the bone in the first three quarters.
She was rewarded with a lengthy rest at the beginning of the final period and when Davis brought her back for the last five minutes in regular time, a text book baseline move off a pass from the nippy Grady ignited enthusiasts at the arena.
The final score could not have been predicted because the local ladies definitely showed a sign of improvement and according to their Coach, Mark Agard “we were just caught ball watching a bit, the girls will rebound in game two”.
Davis gave Guyana credit for their hard work when he told Kaieteur Sport that, “it was a good game. They played competitive and hard. We were as gracious as possible and the experience is for them to learn from this,” he said.
The second game of the planned three-game series was played last night. The touring SC Ladies are expected to conduct a clinic today in Linden where Davis will also conduct an interactive session with coaches in the Mining Town.
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