Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) basketball coordinator Chris Bowman described the performance of Guyana’s girls’ team at the Inter-Guiana Goodwill Games (IGGG) between Suriname and Guyana as “phenomenal.”
The girls’ team secured its first victory at the IGG level since the reintroduction of the games in 2006 by beating Suriname at home 57-49 last Saturday. Suriname would eventually regroup and win the second of the two encounters that day by a larger deficit (68-51), to become the 2012 IGGG female basketball champion team on aggregate points. Nevertheless, Bowman said that under the circumstances, the Guyanese girls’ team played phenomenally after entering the tournament as the underdogs and managed to stun Suriname in the first game.
In game one, Guyana’s centre Genelle Ifill led her team with solid performance down low, contributing 19 points to go along with a monster performance of 23 rebounds for a sensational double-double. Tamara Hunter was on point with a supplementary performance of 19 points, four rebounds and four assists while Kristy Roberts added eight points and 14 rebounds.
Guyana played game two without Felicia Sears, who according to coach, Robert Cadogan, suffered an asthma attack prior to the second game. Team Guyana’s depleted but determined squad was reduced to seven players for the second game as Guyana only carried eight girls. Nevertheless Lowquantor Gibson shouldered the team’s offense, leading the way with 18 points, four rebounds and three steals while Hunter added 14 points seven rebounds and three steals.
Bowman stated that the statistics from both games can serve as evidence of how well the girls’ team played in this year’s tournament. In previous editions Guyana was usually blown out at the IGG level and in some cases by as many as 100 points. Bowman stated that the girls have improved tremendously which comes as a result of them playing together and working towards their dream of succeeding at IGG for the past few years.
