Marabella advances to Hoop of Life big-four

It’s a north/south conference, NBA style. This is what it came down to as the Hoop of Life Community Basketball League entered the Big-Four stage

Marabella joins its southern counterparts, La Romaine, after defeating Canaan/Bon Accord on its home ground 81-77, on Friday, to be the final team to make it into the Big-Four.

The southern team also won its first of the home and away two-match series last week Wednesday 85-69.

The other two teams from the north are Laventille and their next door neighbours, Caledonia, both of whom beat Maloney and Arima respectively to fill the earlier berths in the Big Four. 

The first Big-Four encounter will see Laventille take on La Romaine, while Caledonia is set to face Marabella.

Canaan/Bon Accord needed to win its away match by 17 points to starve off expulsion from the enviable placing in the top four. But, just as in Tobago, Corey Pascall of Marabella was the “vampire” (as some supporters named him), being a pain in Canaan/Bon Accord’s neck. In the last meeting, Pascall had a match-high 32 points, out-doing himself by one point more than the earlier encounter in front of a Tobago crowd.

The aggressive forward was also once again ably assisted by his sidekick Damian Caton, who improved his Tobago outing by scoring 26 points. 

The last time the two teams met, Caton was only able to put 15 points on the scoreboard. 

This time, being spurred on by home fans, Caton was key in seeing the first quarter end 17-14 in his teams favour.

Canaan/Bon Accord did make an attempt to close the 16-point deficit and scored 17 points to Marabella’s 18 in the second quarter. The scoreboard read 35-31.

In the third quarter, a Canaan/Bon Accord favourite, Jonathan Potts, took up the mantle and helped his team out-score the home side by seven points to finish the quarter 23-16 in his team’s favour. Canaan/Bon Accord seemed to have settled down, and after see-sawing a bit, took a four-point lead in the early part of the fourth quarter.

However, as the team realised it was nearly impossible to gain that 13-point-lead Tal vez lo haga llegar a ser tu compañeronecessary in the last three minutes of the game, Canaan/Bon Accord made some fundamental mistakes by losing the ball too often and allowed Marabella, not only to match them on the scoreboard, but to also take the lead, ending the match by seven points more than they 81-77.

Four communities are now looking for the big money. But, one team would walk away without anything, while the other three are assured cash prizes.

With a first prize of $1 million, second place winners earning $500,000 and third place getting $250,000, the Hoop of Life Community Basketball League is at its peak of drama.

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