​Je­lani Val­ley and Ja­son Fri­day com­bined to help South­side Elite be crowned the cham­pi­on of the South Zone Bas­ket­ball League, de­feat­ing Po­lice 75-70 in a nail-bit­ing game three of the best-of-three Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion se­ries fi­nal.

​The vic­to­ry, which took place on Fri­day night at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do, sealed the ex­tend­ed se­ries for Elite, 2-1, af­ter Po­lice had forced the de­cid­ing match with a thrilling 91-88 win in game two on Wednes­day. The se­ries’ sec­ond match was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Oc­to­ber but was post­poned due to a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty alert across T&T, sparked by re­ports of a pos­si­ble Unit­ed States at­tack on neigh­bour­ing Venezuela. The alert led to wide­spread can­cel­la­tions and af­fect­ed the abil­i­ty of pro­tec­tive ser­vices per­son­nel, in­clud­ing the Po­lice team’s play­ers, to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion, as all their play­ers were called out for of­fi­cial du­ty.

​Elite, which won game one, 81-75, on the pre­vi­ous Wednes­day night (Oc­to­ber 29), came out fir­ing, es­tab­lish­ing a com­mand­ing lead ear­ly on and main­tain­ing the pres­sure through­out the first three quar­ters. The score pro­gres­sion tells the sto­ry: 25-15 in the first quar­ter, 43-27 at half­time, and 63-47 in the third, all in favour of Elite.

​The of­fen­sive at­tack for Elite, coached by for­mer na­tion­al women’s bas­ket­baller Melis­sa Guerero, was well-dis­trib­uted, with four play­ers scor­ing in dou­ble dig­its. Val­ley led the charge with a spec­tac­u­lar 21 points, while Fri­day poured in 20 points. Cru­cial con­tri­bu­tions al­so came from Tyrik Singh with 17 points and Josi­ah Mar­ryshow with 13 points. Their bal­anced at­tack proved too much for the Po­lice de­fence.

​Po­lice, how­ev­er, re­fused to quit, mount­ing a for­mi­da­ble come­back at­tempt in the fi­nal quar­ter. Their ef­fort was spear­head­ed by an ab­solute­ly dom­i­nant per­for­mance from Fab­rice Fish­er, who was the match's top scor­er with an as­tound­ing 34 points. De­spite Fish­er's hero­ics and Mika­hail Williams' 10 points, Po­lice, coached by Ash­ton Pe­ters, couldn't quite close the gap, falling short as Elite held on for the five-point vic­to­ry, ig­nit­ing cel­e­bra­tions for the new cham­pi­on.

​On No­vem­ber 5, third place in the di­vi­sion was de­cid­ed with Ansa Stars seal­ing an 87-81 win over Quar­ters Unit­ed at the same venue.

Bronx bags third spot in U-19 Women's Di­vi­sion

​Ear­li­er in the sec­ond match on Fri­day, Bronx se­cured a hard-fought win over 500 Hawks, pre­vail­ing 58-47 in a tight­ly con­test­ed third-place match in the U-19 Women's Di­vi­sion.

​Bronx man­aged to stay ahead for most of the match, though the Hawks kept the pres­sure high, nev­er al­low­ing the lead to stretch too far: 17-15 in the first quar­ter, 30-27 at half­time, and 40-35 in the third pe­ri­od, all in favour of Bronx.

​Ame­na Philbert was the en­gine for the Bronx of­fence, lead­ing all scor­ers in her game with 22 points. She re­ceived sol­id sup­port from Ash­lee Seep­aul, who chipped in 9 points to­wards the win­ning ef­fort.

​For 500 Hawks, Ranes­sa Ser­rette de­liv­ered a strong per­for­mance with 22 points, and Kaylee Hayes added 17 points. De­spite their best ef­forts, the Hawks ul­ti­mate­ly couldn't over­come the con­sis­tent scor­ing of the Bronx squad in the 58-47 de­feat.

​Tak­ing home the U-19 women's ti­tle was Club En­ter­prise, which played with­out star play­er Mya Ray­mond, who re­cent­ly de­part­ed on a schol­ar­ship to Cana­da. The schol­ar­ship was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the South Zone Bas­ket­ball Com­mis­sion and its pres­i­dent, Clint "Cheesy" Wil­son. Club En­ter­prise se­cured a de­ci­sive vic­to­ry in the Girls’ U-19 Di­vi­sion af­ter de­feat­ing Ed­in­burgh Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my, 2-0 in their se­ries fi­nal.

Oth­er Di­vi­sion Re­sults

In the ​Men’s Un­der-23 Di­vi­sion, Point Fortin Vet­er­ans Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my (PFVB­BA), led by Sim­ba Ed­wards, Justin Mitchell, and Lemuel Matthews, se­cured the ti­tle against South­side Elite, win­ning their best-of-three se­ries, 2-1.

In the ​U-17 Boys' Di­vi­sion, Bronx com­plet­ed an un­de­feat­ed run to se­cure the ti­tle. The even­tu­al cham­pi­on met Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics in their three-match fi­nal and swept the se­ries, 2-0.

Re­sults

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion Fi­nal (Game 3)

Elite 75 (Je­lani Val­ley 21, Ja­son Fri­day 20, Josi­ah Mar­ryshow 13, Tyrik Singh 17) vs Po­lice 70 (Fab­rice Fish­er 34, Mika­hail WIlliams 10). Quar­ters: 1st 25-15, 2nd 43-27, 3rd 63-47 (All in favour of Elite)

U-19 women's di­vi­sion

500 Hawks 47 (Ranes­sa Ser­rette 22, Kaylee Hayes 17) vs Bronx 58 (Ame­na Philbert 22, Ash­lee Seep­aul 9). Quar­ters: 1st 17-15, 30-27, 3rd 40-35 (All in favour of Bronx)