Despite getting a team-high 26 points from guard Jordan Persad, T&T fell to Costa Rica, in its final match of the Centrobasket Under-15 Boys Championship, to place sixth in the seven-team competition. This was in Patillas, Puerto Rico on Sunday afternoon.
Though it wasn't enough to produce an upset of Costa Rica, Persad was one of the few bright spots for the twin-island republic, putting together a great performance in the local team's 90-68 loss in the fifth place playoff.
T&T struggled from the jump. At the end of the first quarter, the team representing the red, white and black, trailed 14-22. There was marginal improvement in the second session with T&T almost matching offensively scoring 19 compared to Costa Rica's 22, to go in at the half with a 10-point (43-33) deficit.
In the third period, T&T, coached by Barry Stewart and Morgan "Axe" Shade, again netted 19 points but the Costa Ricans through the contributions of trio Jeaustin Solis, Manrique Alvarado and Ian Martinez remained in charge.
Solis, who emerged Costa Rica's leading scorer with 31 points, made certain his team stayed aggressive in the final stanza with the support of Alvarado and Martinez, who ended with 26 and 19 respectively.
T&T was again outscored in the final period, 16-24, to lose by a 22-point margin.
However, Persad exited the tournament as he did in the Caribbean Basketball Confederation U-16 Championships last month where T&T placed ninth in the ten-team competition, as one of the top performers, averaging 35.0 points, 6.8 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 6.5 steals per game.
The T&T youngsters sealed only one win against regional neighbour Guyana, 107-60 on Friday. Then Persad had led with a Championship-high 56 points. In previous results, T&T playing in Group B in the preliminary, struggled against Dominican Republic 122-65 on Wednesday and 100-90 to Panama the following day.
Host Puerto Rico defeated Dominican Republic 74-67 to claim the title on Sunday night. Finishing third was Mexico with a 100-46 victory over Panama. Costa Rica was fifth while winless Guyana finished seventh.
Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic and Mexico qualified to compete in the 2017 FIBA Americas U-16 Championship.