The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Over the past two years, no other team has enjoyed the kind of success in both the boys’ and girls’ Carlton E Francis Rockets teams.

On Tuesday morning, the principal, faculty, staff and students showed their appreciation to the Rockets during a special assembly after they turned in another dominating performance last week, capping off the fifth Temple Christian Suns Primary School Basketball Tournament by winning the girls’ title and finishing as the runners-up in the boys’ division.

At the week-long tournament that concluded Friday at the Temple Christian Academy Gymnasium, the Rockets routed the Suns 15-4 to clinch their first title, while their boys had to settle for the silver with a 30-24 loss to the Suns after beating the Our Lady’s Blue Flames 25-23 in the playoffs.

“I’m elated. I know that we have a team that is second to none. They have proven themselves over and over,” said a jubilant principal Rosella Darling-Armbrister. “Last year, we won so many games that I knew this year wouldn’t be any different. As you can see, we started off with a bang.”

Darling-Armbrister said since becoming the principal three years ago, she has instilled one positive message to the players: “The ball is theirs and they have to take control of it. Whenever I tell them to take the ball, they remember that and they go out there and take the ball.”

But Darling-Armbrister said none of the Rockets’ success would have been achieved without the leadership from coach Sherman Smith, who has served as a volunteer for more than a decade until the Ministry of Education made him a permanent member of staff as a physical education teacher.

“His commitment is really, really outstanding,” Darling-Armbrister noted. “He sees that they get to the games, get water and he sees that they get home. This man is so outstanding. This was something that has been going on before I got here. There’s never a problem with parents trusting him. He sees that everybody gets home to their house.”

Thanks to the performance of Takeia Ferlin, Kevinique Dabis and Brinique Allen, the Rockets were able to shoot past the Suns for the girls’ title.

“I feel good because we did good,” said Ferlin, an eight-year-old fourth grader. “We are happy that we were able to celebrate after beating Temple Christian for the first time. We are all very happy with our performances.”

Ferlin said if it wasn’t for coach Smith’s insistence in pushing them to excel in practice, including “sending us to the bench when we do something wrong,” they probably would not have been as ssuccessful as they were against Temple Christian. He always tells us that “we need to work harder.”

One of those who worked extremely hard was Dabis, the most valuable player. “This was great. We played good as a team,” said the 11-year-old sixth grader.

On winning the MVP, she noted: “I worked very hard to get this. I hope that I can continue to work hard when I get into high school. I want to improve in my education. I hope to improve my GPA from a 3.2 average to a 4.0.”

Dabis said coach Smith has been credited with getting them to the level that they are at. “He told us what we have to do and that our school supports us really well, so we try not to let them down,” she said. “Our team works together. When they see me fall down, they come and pick me up. But we work together as a team and that has helped us to win.”

The Rockets had to settle for second place in the tournament. But Aaron Brown said they went out there and gave it their best against the Suns.

“It was good. We have a good team with players we can depend on when things are not going right,” said the 10-year-old fifth grader who is the team leader. “I think we did pretty good. We thank coach Smith for getting us to the championship. Hopefully we can win a championship when we play our next tournament.”

Coach Smith said both teams performed very well in their benchmark for the season. “I’m proud of the way the boys performed because last year we won the title and we lost three of our top boys,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t think that we would be as strong. But we are still strong and we are competing very well against the top schools.”

Smith said he is looking forward to the two teams providing their worth when they compete in the New Providence Primary Schools Basketball Tournament scheduled for the end of the month.

Just before that, Smith’s boys’ team is looking to defend their title in the Thanksgiving tournament. “I expect for my boys and girls to become the government school champions,” said Smith, whose boys are the defending champions while the girls finished fourth.

“We have practice at least four times a week and we come back on Saturday and we have a lot of our former students who come back and help me work with the teams.”

Smith said a lot of credit must be given to Norleen Henfield, who works diligently with her, as well as Garvin Clarke, who assists him in the various tournaments. He also said they could not have done it without the tremendous support from the administration and staff at Carlton E Francis as well as the parents.

Darling-Armbrister said having climbed over the first hurdle, she’s only looking for more success from the Rockets during the rest of the school year.

“At the end of the school year, I expect us to have won many championships,” she said. “We are the Rockets and we soar very high.”