The Tribune

By Brent Stubbs

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Temple Christian Academy Suns had another sparkling performance, this time winning the three divisions they played in the Freedom Baptist Academy’s Majority Rule Day Tournament at DW Davis Gymnasium over the weekend.

In the mini-division, Temple Christian defeated Freedom Baptist 17-1, in the under-12 boys, Temple Christian def. DW Davis 21-20 and in the primary girls, Temple Christian def. Freedom Baptist 14-4.

The other two divisions saw St John’s Giants win the junior girls’ crown over Freedom Baptist Academy 10-7 and, in the junior boys, the DW Davis Royals def. Teleos Christian Academy 34-28 for their crown.

“The tournament went okay. A lot of the teams that we invited didn’t show up, but it still went on and the competition was great,” said Josiah Major, one of the tournament organisers. “We had some great games and we had a lot of fun.”

Major also coached Freedom Baptist to an appearance in three divisional finals or semi-finals, although they were not as successful as Temple Christian, coached by Keno Demeritte.

“We had an awesome time,” said Major, who noted that there were only about eight teams that participated, but the majority of them took part in more than one division, which made it quite exciting.

“Everything went well. I have no complaints. Thank God for what we were able to accomplish.”

Demeritte said it was no surprise this his Suns shined in both the mini and primary girls division.

But he said they were exceptionally pleased with their performance in winning the under-12 title over DW Davis.

“Our boys were a bit scared because they were playing guys who are in junior high school,” Demeritte said.

“But I’m very proud of the team. They were a bit rattled at the beginning, but we held our own and we went on a 10-2 run that made the difference.”

The three titles won saw the heart and determination of Temple Christian, Demeritte summed up.

“It was a good thing for us to duplicate what we did in our own tournament in October, winning three divisions,” Demeritte said.

“I think the tournament helps to prepare us as we get ready to go to Grand Bahama for another tournament in February.”

Demeritte gave a lot of credit to Azzarias Marshall, who helped their primary girls to win the fifth tournament they played in so far.

As for the-mini boys, they were led by Jahlem Pennerman and the primary boys and under-12 boys had a combination of Tyler Frazier, Damian Brice and Tayshaun Taylor controlling their attack.

DW Davis’ coach Mark Hanna said he was glad that his Royals got another tournament to participate in, but he was disappointed that more teams did not take advantage of the opportunity.

“We started off kind of slow because of the running time,” Hanna said. “But we made the adjustment and, in the end, we figured things out. Some of the teams we played against, we knew we could beat them, but it was hard with the running time.

“It was a very good tournament and I was surprised that more teams, including AF Adderley, didn’t show up. For junior boys basketball to grow in this country, teams have to stop saying that this is the weekend and the holiday so we can’t compete. This is more practice time playing in tournaments and you can only get better playing in them.”

Major thanked all of the teams who showed up and participated this year, including Temple Christian, DW Davis and St John’s, who all advanced to the championship games with his Freedom Baptist teams.