Spartans TT crowned National boys’ U-17 champions

Spar­tans TT have been crowned the na­tion­al boys’ Un­der-17 cham­pi­ons. The North Zone win­ners car­ried their mo­men­tum from ear­li­er in the sea­son to sweep the best-of-three Big Four fi­nal se­ries 2-0, dom­i­nat­ing the Mal­oney Pac­ers 100-68 in game two on Fri­day night.

​Garvin War­wick, pres­i­dent of Spar­tans TT, ex­pressed im­mense pride in the team’s achieve­ment, not­ing that the vic­to­ry was a prod­uct of long-term in­vest­ment.

“This isn’t overnight suc­cess; this is years of con­sis­tent de­vel­op­ment,” War­wick said. “At Spar­tans TT, we be­lieve strong­ly in build­ing young ath­letes the right way, and many of these play­ers have come through the ranks to­geth­er. While we are proud to win the U-17 na­tion­al ti­tle, our fo­cus re­mains on their holis­tic de­vel­op­ment, es­pe­cial­ly with many prepar­ing for CSEC and CAPE.”

Quar­tet Jay­den Small (24), cap­tain Zachary Julien (21), William Fran­cis (20), and Idri­is Mar­tin (19) were the stand­out per­form­ers for the cham­pi­on team with each scor­ing in dou­ble dig­its to lead the com­mand­ing per­for­mance in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble-head­er, host­ed by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na.

Mar­tin opened the scor­ing with a three-point­er, but it was Fran­cis who gave Spar­tans the ear­ly edge, scor­ing 10 of his 20 points in the open­ing stan­za to put his team ahead 18-13. ​In the sec­ond quar­ter, Kanye George at­tempt­ed to keep Pac­ers in con­tention. How­ev­er, Julien took the of­fen­sive reins, com­bin­ing with Mar­tin for 16 points to push the Spar­tans’ lead to 49-25 by half­time.

Pac­ers, who lost the open­ing match of the se­ries 89-81, re­mained ag­gres­sive af­ter the break. Their per­sis­tence at the bas­ket earned George and Joshua Fontenelle sev­er­al trips to the free-throw line, but they still trailed by 27 points (75-48) at the end of the third. While the Pac­ers en­joyed their best scor­ing out­put in the fi­nal quar­ter, the Spar­tans quar­tet con­tin­ued to fire on all cylin­ders, cruis­ing to the 32-point vic­to­ry. In the los­ing ef­fort, George led the Pac­ers with 19 points, fol­lowed by N’ko­bie Ince with 15, while Jo­vanne Bak­er and Fontenelle added 11 and 10, re­spec­tive­ly.

War­wick added: “Cred­it must al­so go to Mal­oney Pac­ers and Roy­al­ty, hav­ing the top three teams from the North Zone speaks vol­umes about the strength of com­pe­ti­tion.”

​The re­main­ing Big Four se­ries–the Girls’ U-19 Di­vi­sion and the Men’s First Di­vi­sion–were sched­uled for de­ciders yes­ter­day.

​In the Girls’ U-19 Di­vi­sion, Roy­al­ty Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my ex­tend­ed its se­ries to a game three with a 64-54 win over Club En­ter­prise in the open­ing clash on Fri­day night. Led by Kalimah Sookram (25), Joelle Best (15), and Jalila Best (10), Roy­al­ty hand­ed the pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en En­ter­prise their first loss. Caris­sa Ram­di­al (24) and Maka­da Prescott (10) led the scor­ing for En­ter­prise, who won game one, 84-60.

​In the Men’s First Di­vi­sion on Sat­ur­day night, LeadLeads Mal­oney Pac­ers com­mand­ed game two from the tip-off to seal a mas­sive 106-61 win over Po­lice. The law­men had hoped to sweep the se­ries af­ter win­ning game one 78-73, but the re­turn of post play­er Shakiel Bertrand proved de­ci­sive. Bertrand, who missed the open­er, racked up a match-high 33 points. He was sup­port­ed by shoot­ing guard Ah­keel “Smal­ly” Boyd, who poured in 27. Don Wilkin­son led Po­lice with 22 points, while Fab­rice Fish­er and Dex­troy Man­swell each chipped in 10.

​In the third-place play­off held ear­li­er on Sat­ur­day, South­side Elite nar­row­ly de­feat­ed an un­der­manned Strak­er Nets 90-84. Je­lani Val­ley led the way for Elite with 25 points, while Sadi­ki Guer­ra topped all scor­ers with 30 points for the five-man Strak­er squad.

Re­sults

Fri­day

Big Four fi­nal (Game 2)

Boys U-17 Di­vi­sion

Spar­tans TT 100 (Jay­den Small 24, Zachary Julien 21, William Fran­cis 20, Idri­is Mar­tin 19) vs Pac­ers 68 (Kanye George 19, N’ko­bie Ince 15, Jo­vanne Bak­er 11, Joshua Fontenele 10). Quar­ters: 1st 18-13, 2nd 49-25, 3rd 75-48 (All in favour of Spar­tans)

Girls U-19 Di­vi­sion

Roy­al­ty 64 (Kalimah Sookram 25, Joelle Best 15, Jalila Best 10) vs En­ter­prise 54 (Caris­sa Ram­di­al 24, Maka­da Prescott 10). Quar­ters: 1st 10-10, 2nd, 32-27 (Roy­al­ty), 3rd 41-33 (Roy­al­ty).

Sat­ur­day

Big Four fi­nal (Game 2)

Pac­ers 106 (Shakiel Bertrand 33, Ah­keel Boyd 27, Ronald­in­ho Esa­ias 20) vs Po­lice 61 (Don Wilkin­son 22, Fab­rice Fish­er 10, Dex­troy Man­swell 10). Quar­ters: 1st 25-14, 2nd 51-35, 3rd 81-46 (All in favour of Pac­ers)

Third place play­off

Strak­er 84 (Sadi­ki Guer­ra 30, Tris­ton Ben­jamin 20, Shaquille Lewis 13, Mau­rice Fran­cis 11) vs South­side Elite 90 (Je­lani Val­ley 25, Mikal Phillips 15, Tyrik Singh 16, Ja­son Fri­day 12). Quar­ters: 1st 22-16, 2nd 41-39, 3rd 69-66 (All in favour of Elite).