Says Rawle Toney
Defending champions North Ruimveldt are in a do-or-die situation in this year’s Georgetown Inter-ward basketball championships.
After losing game one of their best-in-three semi-finals against Charlestown/ Albouys town they now have to keep their hopes alive by forcing a game three by winning this evening’s encounter at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
Charlestown sunk North Ruimveldt by 18 points (70-52) last Tuesday in a game that sent a shock in the tournament considering the makeup of the North team. They obviously had the better players in all positions but with basketball’s biggest pay cheque of $500,000 on the line, Charlestown evenly matched them.
Stabroek Sport caught up with two key players from each side to try capturing their thoughts and game plan ahead of the big showdown this evening.
National point guard and captain of the North side Darcel Harris admitted that they were caught a bit off guard by the team’s performance.
“It’s not that we were not ready…honestly we were caught by surprise and you have to give credit to them for the way they played, but we would make the necessary adjustments tonight and we’ll see how things go,” Harris said.
He added that in game one, his side was a bit too dependant on Andrew Ifill so most of them barely came up on the score sheets.
“If you look at the game, whenever he got the ball, the offence was stagnant since most of us were a bit too dependant on him but all the players on my team have been there before so we know how to adjust,” Harris explained.
But he said although it’s a must win situation for his side, they are up to the challenge since they have been there before.
“Honestly we are not really in any pressure….the team is well built and the players have been here before so to us it’s just a game that we know we have to win,” the diminutive point guard maintained.
Charlestown’s Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts who has been the rock in his team said that for them right now it’s like a ghetto story since their motto is to win the money.
“Every game for us is a must-win because our players are here for one thing, and that is to make money and the only way we can do that is if we win…we know we have to hustle to win the championship because it will not come just like that,” Roberts said.
He also noted that although his side out-hustled North to take game one, they are still not firing on all cylinders and he marked their performance in game one a ‘B plus’.
Asked if the tournament’s rising star point guard Rodwell Fortune would be fit for game two tonight, Roberts said: “Honestly I think he’s about 70% fit to play but then again, you can’t count him out because even though he is small, he has the heart of a big man.”
So the script is set for another big game. North Ruimveldt is staring elimination in the eye and would want to force a third game while Charlestown is seeing the finals just over the hill but would have to close things out tonight to get there.
