The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

As the Father Marcian Peters Invitational Basketball Tournament swung into high gear with all of the five divisions now in action, the HO Nash Lions junior girls and the Carlton E Francis Rockets primary girls surged to the forefront on Tuesday.

As the two divisions opened play at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium, the Lions roared past CH Reeves 16-13 and devoured the LW Young Golden Eagles 17-4, while the Rockets doubled up the Freedom Baptist Warriors 15-7 and blasted the St Francis/Joseph Shockers 20-7.

Also, the Warriors were too much for the Suns to handle with their 15-3 rout.

• Here’s a summary

of the games:

Lions 16, Raptors 13

After both teams went scoreless in the first quarter, Shenique Knowles broke the ice by pulling down an offensive rebound that she put back up for a 2-0 lead for CH Reeves.

The game turned into a real battle as HO Nash finally got on the scoreboard on a buzzer beating jumper for a 3-2 deficit at the half. Although the Raptors extended their lead to 6-2 to start the third, they didn’t have an answer for the Lions as they roared back into the game behind Kerdise Smith.

“We came out very flat and our jump shot was just awful,” said HO Nash coach Patricia ‘Patti’ Johnson. “We really made so many mistakes. I really have to go back to practice and walk them through it and start all over again.”

When it was all said and done, Smith ended up scoring a game high nine points as HO Nash held on for the win. Knowles and Dwainique Rolle both scored four points in the loss.

“My girls were a little rusty today. We didn’t play since we beat HO Nash in the regular season,” said CH Reeves’ coach Varel Davis. “We just have to work on our lay-ups and hitting the free throws.”

Lions 17, Golden Eagles 7

Settling down after pulling off a close encounter against CH Reeves, HO Nash turned it up another notch against LW Young, posting a 13-0 run in the second quarter behind Laquan Sands’ 10 points to snatch a 15-0 lead at the half.

“We got our confidence and the guards played a lot better than the first game against CH Reeves,” coach Johnson said. “We still need to work on moving our feet. We tend to reach too much. We have to move our feet much better on defence.”

Sands finished with a game high 13 points in the win for the Lions. Trecia Brown came up with all four points for the Golden Eagles.

“We just didn’t come to play today,” said LW Young’s coach Melinda Bastian. “They played better against HO Nash during the GSSSA regular season. They weren’t focused today. We just have to practice harder and play harder.”

Warriors 15, Suns 3

In a lopsided primary girls’ game, Freedom Baptist almost scored the same amount of points of each of the four quarters as they led 4-0 after the first break, 8-0 at the half and 10-3 at the end of the third.

“It wasn’t their best. This was our first time beating Temple Christian in a big tournament,” said Warriors’ coach Tabethia Major. “We played them in so many tournaments, but we never beat them. We played good, but we could have played better,”

Alisha Duncombe, who came up with four in the first and five in the fourth, was more of a one-woman wrecking crew, scoring a game high 13 points and Aaliyah Henfield added the other two points.

Loryne Burrows had two points and Gabrielle Murphy one in a losing effort for Temple Christian.

“We’re starting a rebuilding process with our girls programme, so I know it’s going to take us another year to get back to where we were,” said Temple Christian’s coach Keno Demeritte. “We had a lack of discipline in doing the things we went through in practice and that comes with the growing pain.”

Rockets 20, Shockers 7

This was supposed to be a marquee primary girls game between two primary school champions, but Carlton E Francis had other plans as they made it look so easy.

“We started off good, even though we haven’t played any basketball in two weeks and we were not going to enter because the girls had to take their exams,” said Rockets coach Sherman Smith. “The girls didn’t know they were going to play until today.”

Takeia Ferlin scored five points in the win for Carlton E Francis, who won the New Providence Primary Schools title and Johneisha Nixon had a game high seven in the loss for St Francis/Joseph, who went 9-0 in the Catholic league to win the title.

“Coming off the Catholic championship, we didn’t have a chance to practice and the girls came out flat,” said Shockers’ coach Ricardo Freemantle. “We bounced back, but we ended up losing the game, our first loss for the season.”

Rockets 15, Warriors 7

From start to finish, Carlton E Francis was in control of this primary girls’ match-up as coach Smith faced one of his protégés in coach Major.

After taking an early 4-0 lead in the first quarter, they extended their lead to 8-3 at the half and 10-5 at the end of the third.

Branika Alexis and Takeia Ferlin provided a 1-2 punch with seven and five points respectively for Carlton E Francis. Aaliyah Henfield and Esther Pierre both had three for Freedom Baptist.

Unlike the other divisions, the junior and primary girls will not be back in action until Friday because of the limited amount of teams entered.

But tournament director Michael ‘Scooter’ Reid said it gives them more time to focus on the primary, junior and intermediate boys and senior girls divisions.

“The tournament has been going really well, despite the setback with teams verbally promising to come and then don’t show up at the last minute,” Reid said. “Today, a number of games in the primary and junior girls had to be called off.

“But the rest of the week, we will have a very tight schedule with 29 teams in the intermediate boys and 26 in the junior boys.

“We have a time to be completed because if you don’t know, junior junkanoo is on Saturday at 3pm and we are trying to finish all of the games so we don’t hold these people up from going to the show.”

By Friday night, Reid promised that they will have all of the preliminary games completed and will only have the championship games to play on Saturday morning.

The tournament continues 2pm today.