Central McKenzie spoil party in Georgetown

Jun 09, 2012 Sports

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– tournament moves to Linden tonight

By Edison Jefford
Central McKenzie spoiled the party in Georgetown Thursday night after they prevented the City teams

from celebrating a clean sweep of opposition from Linden when the National Community Basketball League (NCBL) continued at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
Central McKenzie, undoubtedly one of the strongest teams in the competition, came from behind in unusual officiating circumstances, tied the game they looked set to lose and then won 69-66 in overtime, leaving Diamond/McDoom in absolute shock and dejection.
In a below-par offensive performance for such a team as Central McKenzie with Akeem Kanhai, Steve Neils Jr, Jason Alonzo, Marvin Hartman, Kevin Joseph and Orin Rose, who are all players with national experience, a win Thursday night seemed highly improbably.
However, Neils, who benefitted from a foul call on the regulation buzzer and had the opportunity to win the game from the free-throw line, but could only manage to level the scores, finished the game with 17 points while Alonzo had 16 points and Joseph 15 points.
Travis Burnett was pure class for Diamond that led the game up until the final two minutes when some dubious officiating intervened. He scored 21 points while Horace Hodges, Jermaine Slater and Ryan Stephney had 10 points each in the top-of-the-table showdown.
Diamond’s shooting guard, Trevor Smith landed consecutive three-pointers in the last minute of the initial period to give his team an easy 21-10 lead at the end of the opening quarter as Central McKenzie was obviously struggling offensively, and with their chemistry.
Neils and Marks continued to struggle to convert in the second period while Diamond sustained their high shooting percentage. However, Central McKenzie seemed to find some rhythm in the period before Burnett went on a rampage, clinically taking apart their defence.
Diamond went to the guards, Stephney, Burnett and Rodwell Fortune for results and immediately the early offensive momentum re-emerged with a 24-15 lead with a little over five minutes left in the first half of the game. The Central McKenzie’s offence was taken aback.
Diamond’s defence was outstanding, switching the zone and man strategies intermittently before Stephney’s three-pointer gave them a 32-20 advantage with a minute to play in the first half that ended 35-24 in favour of Diamond/McDoom that looked set to win the game.
An ‘And-One’ move from Burnett further extended Diamond’s lead as Central McKenzie looked to Alonzo and Marks in the paint for answers. Instead, the game got defensive with both teams in a high-intensity battle for the top spot in Group ‘B’ of the competition.
Burnett broke down the entire Central McKenzie defence at the top of the key with his crossover then faked their whole defence for a left-handed lay-up. Rodrigues then landed a running buzzer-beater to end the third quarter 53-40 with Diamond still in firm control.
However, that control immediately rescinded at the start of the fourth period when Kanhai nailed a big three-pointer to make it a 10-point game. Neils assist then three-pointer made further inroad to Diamond’s lead as Central McKenzie caught the team napping.
Two free-throws and a three-pointer from Neils completed a 13-point run for Central McKenzie that tied the game a 53 points. However six unanswered points from Diamond owed to a Burnett drive and Slater inside move helped them recover out the offensive slump.
But Neils and Joseph combined to cut the lead to two points with just a minute left in the contest.
Alonzo put-back with 16 seconds brought Central McKenzie to within one point, 63-62, before a travelling call on Slater gave them another possession with 7.5 seconds left.
Three inbound attempts went awry for Central McKenzie before Neils was gifted with final shot, which he missed on the baseline, but was somehow placed on the free-throw line. Neils made the second of the two shots after missing the first to send the game into overtime.
An obviously deflated Diamond/McDoom team could not find the tenacity to play the extra time as Alonzo and Joseph led Central McKenzie to the huge win. It was a good reprieve for the team that was out-played for most of the game, and sweet revenge for Linden.
Earlier in the night, Universal Group of Companies Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust edged the other Linden team in the competition, Wismar, 75-68 to finish at the top of Group ‘D’. Randy Burgess scored 19 points while Shawn Gillis had 17 and Naylon Loncke 10 points.
For the young Wismar team, Chris Williams had 12 points, Harold Adams 11 points and Marlon Pollydore nine points. Wismar will continue their sojourn in the tournament tonight against when the event moves to the McKenzie Sports Club Court against BV/Melanie.
The Western Union-sponsored Central McKenzie will then take on Tucville/Guyhoc in the other game scheduled for the night. The games tonight are expected to commence at 7pm. Tomorrow’s games are the final games of the preliminary round before the Super Eight.

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