STATHS, Hydel 'ready' for showdown

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Southern Conference champions, St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS), and Hydel, will clash in today's final of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/KFC all-island Under-19 basketball competition at the National Stadium Courts, starting at 5 p.m.

In the curtain-raiser for the Under-16 title, defending champions St George's College (StGC) will oppose Belair, starting at 3 p.m.

The Under-19 final is expected to be a very exciting affair, as this is a repeat of the Southern Conference best-of-three finals, in which STATHS recorded a 2-1 come-from-behind series victory over Hydel.

Venrecce Watson, coach of STATHS, said his team is very confident going into today's encounter.

"We just need a bit more improvement on what we did in the Southern Conference finals because we need to play better defensively and we also need to get out to a quick start and so we finish off the game by the end of the third quarter," said Watson, whose team beat Manchester High in the semi-finals of the all-island play-offs.

Closely contested

Continuing, he said: "We're not preparing for a closely contested game because we are going to give it all that we have from the get-go.

"The boys are fit and ready and raring to go and I am confident we are going to come out victorious tomorrow."

He added "I think that we have the best point guard in the competition this year in Lamont Lindsay and he is going to lead our attack from in-front for this victory."

Along with Lindsay, the Bumper Hall-based STATHS will be relying heavily on shooting guard Kino Elliott, forward Ricardo Greaves and centre Joel Smith.

Watson' opposite number, Kurt Stewart, whose team's secured their place with a victory over Kingston College in the other semi-final, is also very optimistic.

"We are very confident and we are looking forward to this game because we have only one game to crown ourselves the national champions and we are ready and raring to go," said Stewart.

He added: "We need to control the tempo of the game and we also need to out-rebound them in order for us to win this game because they have a mixture of styles and we have to be at our best to beat them."

Hydel will rest their hopes in the hands of this year's Southern Conference Most Valuable Player and shooting guard, Paul Richards, along with point, Jhovan Redman and forward, Jervis Hamilton.