By Rawle Toney

McKenzie High School (MHS) and the Linden Technical Institute (LTI) are set to meet in the finals of the Ministry of Sport Linden inter-schools basketball tournament after capturing resounding victories in their semi-final action yesterday at the McKenzie Sports Club ground. MHS blew away Linden Foundation Secon-dary (LFS) 60-39 while LTI breezed pass the Christianburg Wismar Secondary (Multi) 44-14.

Akeem Kanhai was dominant once again as he led MHS to the finals, scoring 30 points.

Junior national player and rising star Akeem Kanhai had a field day as he single-handedly destroyed the LFS defence.

Though the LFS team were able to keep up with the MHS after having the scores tied at half time at 20, they couldn’t keep up with Kanhai and his troops.

Kanhai who is warming up for his debut in this year’s Next Level Entertainment (NLE) basketball tournament where he will feature with the Amelia’s Ward Jets finished with game high 30 points, while he received admirable support from Sheldron Noel who had a well played 18 points. For LFS, Jeffery Larose had 22 points while first game hero Aba Mohammed could only muster 12 points.  Meanwhile in the opening game of the double header, junior national player Orin Rose Jr. had a fantastic day as he led the LTI offence with a hail of three pointers since he was unmarked by the Multi players. At half time the scores were 19-9 in favour of LTI.

Rose who like Kanhai will also feature in the NLE tournament, appearing with the Kashif and Shanghai Kings, netted 24 points while Leebert hinds had 14. Only Keesi Tappin touched double figures for Multi as he scored 11 points. The clash between the two schools who have built a rivalry will be a rematch of last year’s Victory Valley Royals school tournament finals where MHS through an outstanding performance from Kanhai toppled Rose and his LTI gang.

And since the two players are in superb form, an exciting final is expected. According to the organisors, the match will take place on March 13 at the McKenzie Sports Club hard court.