RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor - Sport

rachael.king@guardian.co.tt

North Zone’s pow­er­hous­es, Strak­er Nets and De­fence Force, claimed vi­tal vic­to­ries in the Men’s First Di­vi­sion as ac­tion in the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) Na­tion­al Club Cham­pi­onships con­tin­ued across the coun­try.

​On Sat­ur­day at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na, Strak­er Nets, the Zone’s run­ner-up, out­last­ed South Zone third-placed Ansa Stars in a 78–69 thriller. Led by a game-high 26 points from point guard Sadi­ki Guer­ra, the Nets over­came a late surge from the Stars.

​De­spite trail­ing 50-49 at the end of the third quar­ter, the Nets found their rhythm in the fi­nal pe­ri­od to pull away. Tris­ton Ben­jamin added 13 points in the win­ning ef­fort, while Ansa Stars’ Lester Ed­wards (21 points) and Michael Pan­tin (18 points) kept the con­test with­in reach un­til the clos­ing min­utes.

​The week­end’s ac­tion tipped off on Fri­day at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (SRISA) in Pleas­antville, where De­fence Force (North Zone’s third-placed) as­sert­ed its dom­i­nance over Po­lice (South Zone’s sec­ond-placed). Be­hind Kadeem Greig’s 22-point per­for­mance, the army-coast guard com­bi­na­tion team se­cured a 77-67 win.

​In the night’s oth­er First Di­vi­sion fix­ture, South Zone cham­pi­on South­side Elite show­cased its of­fen­sive depth with four play­ers scor­ing in dou­ble fig­ures to dis­miss Quar­ters (South Zone’s fourth-placed), 91-74. Jalani Val­ley led the charge with 16 points. He was sup­port­ed by Mikiel Phillip, who was sec­ond-best with 15, Tyrik Singh (13) and Ja­son Fri­day (12).

Sim­ba Ed­ward scored 22 for Quar­ters in a los­ing cause.

​The de­vel­op­men­tal cat­e­gories saw some of the week­end’s most lop­sided scores as the next gen­er­a­tion of tal­ent took cen­tre stage.

In the ​Boys’ Un­der-17 Di­vi­sion, Spar­tansTT put on a clin­ic against the Mal­oney Pac­ers, fin­ish­ing with a 92-64 vic­to­ry. The Spar­tans main­tained a dou­ble-dig­it lead through every quar­ter – 25-18 in the first, 44-34 at half­time and 68-49 in the third – pow­ered by a trio of scor­ers, in­clud­ing William Fran­cis with a match-high 28 points, Idri­is Mar­tin with 22 and Zachary Julien with 20.

In the Girls’ U-19 cat­e­go­ry, Club En­ter­prise left no room for doubt in their clash with 500 Hawks, storm­ing to a 21-4 lead in the first quar­ter and nev­er look­ing back. They even­tu­al­ly se­cured a 77-46 win, with Maka­da Prescott and Melis­sa Pierre each net­ting 11 points. De­spite the loss, the Hawks’ Kaylee Haynes de­liv­ered the stand­out in­di­vid­ual per­for­mance of the match with 24 points.

​The ac­tion re­turns to SRISA this evening for a First Di­vi­sion dou­ble-head­er, start­ing at 7 pm. Ad­mis­sion is $20.