The Tribune

By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

The CV Bethel Stingrays and CI Gibson Rattlers both won their game threes in convincing fashion to take the senior girls and boys titles yesterday in the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association (GSSSA) basketball championships.

The Stingrays completed the task first, blowing out the CR Walker Knights 67-45 at the Kendal GL Isaacs Gymnasium. The Rattlers earned the senior boys’ trophy for the second straight year against the Anatol Rodgers Timberwolves, defeating them 58-47.

Senior Girls

The Stingrays were left with a bitter taste in their mouths following a narrow game two loss to the Knights on Tuesday. However, a 22-point drubbing was the final blow the team needed to put away the pesky Knights once and for all.

Shantelle Rolle, head coach of CV Bethel, was relieved to finally be able to celebrate after a disappointing loss on Tuesday night.

“It’s a great feeling, last night was very disappointing. We went over our game from yesterday. We watched it on the screen and I came out tonight and made some adjustments. Instead of pressing full court we pulled back on 3-2 and slowed the game down a little bit so they could play at our pace,” the coach said.

The new defensive scheme paid dividends for the Stingrays who held the Knights to single After only being down by one in the opening quarter, the Knights trailed the rest of the game and got out- scored 39-30 in the second half. The CV Bethel student body showed up in droves for their team during the best-of-three championship series.

Coach Rolle said the support was tremendous for the team.

“First of all it starts with my principal. I have A1 support from my principal and as long as the captain has support the other crew will follow. I really want to thank our CV cast. They came out tremendously, the band, the students and the teachers,” she said.

The team is hoping to celebrate the champion- ship win with a motorcade.

Senior Boys

It was an emotional victory for the Rattlers who won back-to-back titles but this time without their assistant coach - the late Craig “Rambo” Smith - on the bench. The team went down 0-1 to start the series but with the name “Rambo” stitched onto their jerseys, they pulled off consecutive hard-fought wins to down the Timberwolves 2-1.

Kevin “KJ” Johnson, Rattlers head coach, became overwhelmed by a rush of emotions as he talked about why this championship was so important to the team.

“First of all I want to thank God for the opportunity to coach these young men. Our assistant coach Rambo, we lost him earlier to a heart attack but we dedicate this season to him and the boys fought hard. Anatol Rodgers is a very good team [with] tough guys. They never gave up and shot the ball extremely well but we did it for Rambo,” coach Johnson said.

Similar to game two, it was a low-scoring affair between both teams in the first quarter. However, Anatol managed to create a three-point margin (10-7) on the scoreboard. The Rattlers then locked in and ran ahead 33-23 with 1:11 remaining in the second quarter. During this period, the team had their biggest scoring output of the game with 29 points compared to 16 from the Timberwolves.

Just when it looked like the Rattlers were firmly in charge of the ball game, the Timberwolves mounted what appeared to be a comeback. After trailing by 13 (41-28), they erased the deficit to just eight points going into the final period.

“We knew they were gonna make a run but at the end of the day we wanted to play the type of defence we are capable of playing and we did that,” Johnson said.

The Timberwolves were reinvigorated to start the fourth quarter. They kept attacking the Rattlers defence and came within six (51-45) with 1:59 left to go.

Despite a last minute surge, the champions scored back-to-back layups to shut down the Timberwolves for another year.

Tashan Butler was electric on offence. He dropped a game-high 27 points with 12 scored in the second quarter. He was named the MVP of the series.

The GSSSA basketball champions are the CH Reeves Raptors (junior girls), DW Davis Royals (junior boys), Stingrays (senior girls) and Rattlers (senior boys).

Next up for the GSSSA will be the track and field meet scheduled for February 28 to March 1.