Cummings Lodge Secondary extended their unbeaten streak to 15 straight games when they slaughtered a fierce Queen’s College side 71-64 to advance to the Georgetown conference finals of the Guyana Secondary School Basketball Associa-tion’s (GSSBA) ‘March Madness’ play-offs.
The story behind Cummings Lodge’s victory was the fearless and aggressive play of their ‘big four’ in Travis Williams, Bevon Spooner, Keon Hayles and Colwin Nurse.
Those four players combined for 65 of the team’s 71 points and it was their high percentage shooting in the first half of the game that put QC down early.
QC came out and administered a two-three zone defensive set which was formed by two guards playing defence outside the perimeter and three forwards defending down low, with the intention of denying all possible penetration for the lethal Cummings Lodge guards.
On offence they went straight to small forward Kiev Chesney who made good his first three attempts to help QC get to an early 6-2 lead.
But Cummings Lodge came right back and punished QC for not showing enough respect for their shooters by hitting five consecutive jump-shots which gave them the lead.
QC’s point guard, Biniam Norton, penetrated the lane unsuccessfully on a few occasions and Cummings Lodge capitalized on the absence of a guard in the backcourt and punished QC on the fast-break.
Cummings Lodge continued to explode on the fast-break points which gave them a 31-16 lead capped by an exhilarating dunk by 5′ 10″ shooting guard Spooner.
After trailing 17-33 at halftime, things continued to fall apart in the QC camp and they trailed by as much as 21 points with less than 14 minutes remaining in the second 20-minute half.
In desperation, QC launched a final come-from-behind effort with less than 10 minutes to go in the game and managed to progressively cut the deficit to six points with 2:47s remaining.
The Cummings Lodge players, however, did not panic and put the ball in the hands of their trusted ‘big four’ who would not the let relentless QC players tarnish their unbeaten record.
Hayles and Spooner each registered 20 points while Colwin Nurse and Travis Williams registered 13 and 12 points respectively for the victors.
Chesney scored a futile game-high 26 points while Norton cashed in on some free throws later in the game to take his total to 13 points, the same as Ryburn Weaver.
Central High also qualified for the Georgetown conference finals when they overcame St. John’s College 60-62 in a dramatic encounter.
Though St. John’s contained the Central offence early, there was really no escaping the deadly scoring ability of national junior player Travis Burnett who destroyed the St. John’s team registering 28 points and 18 rebounds in the game.
After trailing 29-33 at halftime, St. John’s found themselves down by as much as 10 points nearing the end of regulation.
Keith Tute, who scored 24 points, would eventually lead a comeback to tie the game with less than 60 ticks on the clock. Burnett would, however, be responsible for the game-winning basket when he drove down the lane and converted a tough lay up. Samuel Thompson registered a double-double of 14 points and 14 rebounds for St John’s, while Darnel Pilgrim added 12 points for Central High.
