Mal­oney Pac­ers main­tained its un­beat­en tag to claim the First Di­vi­sion ti­tle against the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on, Strak­er Nets, in the Kelvin Roberts North Zone Bas­ket­ball League at the Wood­brook Youth Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day evening.

Led by shoot­ing guard Ah­keel “Smal­ly” Boyd, Pac­ers de­feat­ed Strak­er Nets, 77-70 in game two to sweep the best-in-three fi­nal se­ries, 2-0. This was af­ter be­ing in con­trol for the en­tire match.

Boyd, a mem­ber of the na­tion­al men’s 3x3 bronze-medal-win­ning team at the San­ti­a­go 2023 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Chile, re­mained un­stop­pable of­fen­sive­ly, as he has been all sea­son, notch­ing 33 points to en­sure the Pac­ers’ un­beat­en run con­tin­ued through the reg­u­lar sea­son against nine oth­er teams and in­to the Big Four.

Pac­ers, coached by Chris­tor­pher Jack­son Charles, coach of that third-placed Pan Am team, dom­i­nat­ed the first quar­ter, rac­ing to a 19-11 lead. Boyd scored 11 of those points. He con­tin­ued at­tack­ing the bas­ket, work­ing in tan­dem with Tyrese Fields to in­crease Pac­ers’ lead to 15 (39-24) at the half.

Stark­er, though, in the third ses­sion forged a come­back, pi­lot­ed by re­li­able point guard Sadi­ki Guer­ra, guard Tris­ton Ben­jamin and for­ward Shakiel Lewis. The trio man­aged to cut Pac­ers’ lead to nine (53-44), head­ing in­to the fourth quar­ter.

The Nets con­tin­ued to chip away at the lead with Guer­ra, Lewis and Chike Au­gus­tine, an­oth­er mem­ber of the na­tion­al 3x3 team, at­tack­ing the bas­ket, earn­ing them trips to the free throw line to keep their team with­in reach.

Strak­er went on to outscore Pac­ers, 26-24, in the fi­nal quar­ter but it was not enough as Boyd matched them on the oth­er end with sup­port from Field and youth­ful post-play­er six-foot­er Lashawn Al­fred, to close out the sev­en-point vic­to­ry.

Fields poured in 18 points and Al­fred net­ted 13 points for the cham­pi­on.

Strak­er, coached by Wayne Sandy, put up a much bet­ter fight af­ter los­ing game one by dou­ble-fig­ures (22) but still fell short. Guer­ra was again best on of­fence for the Nets, pro­duc­ing a team-high 22 points. Lewis end­ed with 11 and Au­gus­tine, 10, the on­ly oth­er play­ers reach­ing dou­ble-dig­its for the los­ing side.

Ear­li­er, Vet­er­an Sweaters edged De­tour Shak At­tack Vets by a point (60-59) to take third place in the Over-45 Di­vi­sion thanks to the com­bined ef­fort of Nigel Fletch­er (15), Ko­ri Camp­bell (13) and Dex­ter Bridge­wa­ter (11).

Sweaters dom­i­nat­ed the first quar­ter to gain a 10-point ad­van­tage, 22-12. Shak At­tack, boost­ed by the ef­fort of Joseph Cox (18) and Reynold Hospedales (14), ral­lied back to trail by four (31-27) at half­time.

On the re­sump­tion, An­cil Ol­livierre got in on the ac­tion and added six points to Shak At­tack’s score as his team cut their deficit to one (46-45). Cox and Hospedales went to work in the fourth pe­ri­od as Sweaters matched De­tour, bas­ket-for-bas­ket (14-14), but un­for­tu­nate­ly had to set­tle for the one-point loss.

The North Zone league comes to an end on Tues­day with the lone match in the O-45 Di­vi­sion, game three be­tween De­fence Force Vet­er­ans vs East West Vets at 7.30 pm.

Re­sults

First Di­vi­sion (game 2)

• ↓Strak­er Nets 70 (Sadi­ki Guer­ra 22, Shakiel Lewis 11, Chike Au­gus­tine 10) vs Mal­oney Pac­ers 77 (Ah­keel Boyd 33, Tyrese Fields 18, Lashawn Al­fred 13). Quar­ters: 1st 19-11, 2nd 39-24, 3rd 53-44 (All in favour of Pac­ers)

O-45 Di­vi­sion

• ↓De­tour Shak At­tack 59 (Joseph Cox 18, Reynold Hospedales 14) vs Vet­er­an Sweaters 60 (Nigel Fletch­er 15, Ko­ri Camp­bell 13, Dex­ter Bridge­wa­ter 11). Quar­ters: 1st 22-12, 2nd 31-27, 3rd 46-45 (All in favour of Sweaters)

Tues­day’s match

O-45 Di­vi­sion (game 3)

• ↓De­fence Force Vet­er­ans vs East West Vets, 7.30 pm