The Victory Valley Royals solidified their chances of clinching the Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA) first division title after wrapping up their third consecutive victory in the second round of the tournament.
Their last victim was Amelia’s Ballers who suffered a 74-62 defeat over the weekend when the competition continued at the Mackenzie Sports Club hard court.
It was clear that the Royals meant business since they led 35-19 at half time.
With the absence of their primary player Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts, Lawrence DaCosta and Steven Couchman stepped up and each netted 16 points.
For the Ballers, Cleon Johnson had 15 while Shawn Ettiene and Gavin Fingal scored 11 and 10 points respectively.
But the Ballers did salvage some pride and pick up a win along the walkover route since their opponents Patriots failed to turn up on time.
According to the LABA Organizing Secretary Ashton Angel Jr., the team turned up approximately 45 minutes after the stipulated 7pm start.
He said it took an almost 17-minute wait before the first whistle was blown.
The new association, Angel said, would not be condoning late starts at their games and this was conveyed to the clubs at their last meeting after they took office.
Meanwhile, Amelia’s Ward Jets seemed to have run out of fuel as they suffered back-to-back defeats over the weekend.
After a good first round they lost one game as the side, according to reports, are dealing with some internal problems which is evidently hampering their usually good performance.
On Saturday they went down to the Patriots 63-62 in a closely contested affair.
The Jets held on to a slim 28-25 points lead at the end of the first half, but just couldn’t keep it together as the game progressed.
Ruel Daniels led the Patriots with 17 points while national forward Neil Marks and Julius Carter secured 15 and 12 points each respectively.
Delbert Cesar had a game high 18 points for the Jets and Allister Webster chipped in with 13.
Kevin ‘Two Feet’ Joseph supported with 10.
The following evening high school star Akeem Kanhai scored a game high 18 points but that wasn’t enough to help the Jets who went under to the Wismar Pistons 46-53.
Trevor Profit had a good game for the Pistons and he was supported by Mark Louis with 13.
There are only nine more matches left before the completion of the tournament which is sponsored by Pioneer Construction and Angel believes that should good weather prevail, they should wrap things up in about a week and a half.
Listed below are the point’s standings for the tournament so far:
Teams wins losses points
1. Royals 8 2 18
2. Pistons 7 2 16
3. Jets 6 4 16
4. Patriots 4 5 13
5. Ballers 3 7 13
6. Bulls 3 7 11
7. Raiders 2 7 11
