Honours shared as finals begin

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Defending champions Ardenne High and St George's College recorded exciting victories in game one of their best-of-three ISSA/ KFC Southern Conference Basketball Under-19 and Under-16 finals respectively on Friday at the National Stadium.

In the curtain raiser, St George's defeated Ardenne 47-45 in the Under-16 final. Javed Habib led the way for St George's with game-high 16 points and 11 rebounds. Josef Thomas an Brandon Goldsmith with 13 points each were the main scorers for Ardenne.

However, Ardenne turned the tables on St George's in the Under-19 final, by beating them 74-56.

Ardenne were led to victory by point guard Dimitri Gage who scored a game high 22 points.Ardenne began the match confidently, which saw them holding a 31-21 lead at half time.

However, St George's rallied strongly in the third period courtesy of their leading scorer Stefano Leslie, who scored seven of his team-high 17 points, in the period to reduce the deficit to 47-39 at the end of the period.

came out firing

However, the Basil Barrett-coached Ardenne came out firing in the fourth quarter as Gage and drained three of his four three-pointers. His team-mate Justin Fletcher also sank three three-pointers as the champions rang circles around their opponents in the period, and in the process eased home for a comfortable victory. Fletcher ended the game with 15 points. Kemar Cummings, 14 points, was the second best scorer for St George's.

Barrett said he was delighted with team's performance. "It was even game after the first half, and told them at half time that we need to win this one because we lost the junior game by two points," said Barrett.

"They listened to me and it worked out in the second half because our display of shooting was great and we made a lot of three-pointers and this helped us to win the game," Barrett said.

Clifford Brown, coach of St George's said: "I think our performance was below expectations, but it is a best-of-three series and so there is hope."

"I Believe that offensively we didn't called enough and follow through on our rebounds and defensively, we weren't playing the shooters as close as we should," Brown said.

Game two will be played on Monday at the same venue.