Bas­ket­ball teams from across T&T gath­ered on Sat­ur­day ( June 7) at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do for an in­spir­ing show­case of ath­leti­cism, team­work, and in­clu­sion as part of the Spe­cial Olympics T&T (SOTT) Na­tion­al Games.

Ath­letes com­pet­ed in both in­di­vid­ual skills and team cat­e­gories, with Memisa Cen­tre Team 1 claim­ing vic­to­ry in game one and La­dy Ho­choy Home Gas­par­il­lo (LH­HG) Com­bined Team 2 emerg­ing as cham­pi­ons in game two.

The event drew en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port from coach­es, vol­un­teers, and fam­i­ly mem­bers, all of whom have played a vi­tal role in the ath­letes’ prepa­ra­tion and suc­cess. SOTT chair­man Ma­jor David Ben­jamin praised the event, say­ing, “The bas­ket­ball event host­ed by SOTT tru­ly ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions, de­liv­er­ing a day filled with ex­cite­ment, ca­ma­raderie, and high-spir­it­ed com­pe­ti­tion in both in­di­vid­ual skills and 3x3 for­mats. Be­yond the thrilling on-court ac­tion, this event pro­vid­ed an in­valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for our tech­ni­cal team to start the im­por­tant process of se­lect­ing ath­letes who will rep­re­sent T&T at the SO Caribbean 3x3 Uni­fied Re­gion­al Bas­ket­ball Tour­na­ment in Guade­loupe this No­vem­ber. It was a re­mark­able day that show­cased the tal­ent, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and uni­ty of our ath­letes and com­mu­ni­ty, an in­spir­ing step for­ward on our jour­ney of in­clu­sion and sport­ing ex­cel­lence.”

Oth­er schools com­pet­ing were La­dy Ho­choy School Gas­par­il­lo (LHSG), La­dy Ho­choy Vo­ca­tion­al Cen­tre (LHVC), Pointe-a-Pierre Gov­ern­ment Spe­cial School (PAPGSS), Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (NCPD), Keisha Wel­come and As­so­ciates In­ter­ven­tion Ser­vices (KWAIS) Chil­dren Foun­da­tion, La­dy Ho­choy School Co­corite (LH­SC)

Coach Ronald De­Sil­va of SOTT Bas­ket­ball ex­pressed im­mense pride in the ath­letes’ per­for­mances, not­ing the ded­i­ca­tion and re­silience dis­played dur­ing train­ing.

“These are things that I tell the ath­letes when I am work­ing with them in prac­tice, and they tell me they can­not do it,” De­Sil­va said, ref­er­enc­ing the mo­ti­va­tion­al words of Muhammed Ali - “The will is stronger than the skill”, Theodore Roo­sevelt - “Be­lieve you can and you are halfway there” and scrip­ture -“I can do all things through Christ that strength­ens me” - he us­es to in­spire con­fi­dence. De­spite mo­ments of self-doubt, each ath­lete de­liv­ered a strong per­for­mance, earn­ing ap­plause for their achieve­ments on Sat­ur­day.

While spir­it­ed com­pe­ti­tion was at the heart of the event, the games al­so fos­tered con­nec­tion, per­son­al growth, and pride in par­tic­i­pa­tion. Sat­ur­day’s bas­ket­ball fix­tures are part of a broad­er Na­tion­al Games cal­en­dar, run­ning from May 10 to June 14, which fea­tures eight sports in­clud­ing vol­ley­ball, boc­ce, ath­let­ics, aquat­ics, and pow­er­lift­ing.

The Games are made pos­si­ble through the gen­er­ous sup­port of the Dig­i­cel T&T Foun­da­tion, the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs and Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Lim­it­ed.

The 2025 Games, which com­menced on May 10, will cul­mi­nate with a vi­brant clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day (June 14), from 5 pm to 7.30 pm at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain. The event will fea­ture re­marks by the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Phillip Watts, cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ments of all par­tic­i­pants and mark­ing the suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of this year’s com­pe­ti­tion.

Bas­ket­ball Skills As­sess­ment Test

Group 1: 1 Ely­on Lynch (LHSG) 35, 2 Bran­don Par­ris (LHSG) 32, 3 Jah­mai Saun­ders (LHSG) 18

Group 2: 1 Dar­ius Caton (LHSG) 48, 2 An­tho­ny Loui­son (LHVC) 46, 3 Janelle Ver­net (LH­HG) 37, 4 Rosan­na Ge­bodh (LH­HG) 36, 5 An­tho­ny Parks (LHSG) 34

Group 3: 1 Leon To­by (PAPGSS) 64, 2 Make­sie Craig (LH­SC) 55, 3 Samuel San­di­ford (PAPGSS) 49, 4 Tami­ka Rav­el­lo-Dara­bie (LH­HG) 45, 5 Ako­da Castel­lano (LH­HG) 39

Group 4: 1 Shenel Jack­son (LHVC) 55, 2 Naila Bartholomew (KWAIS) 52, 3 Mar­lon Nar­iens­ingh (LH­HG) 52, 4 Ansel­ma Mc Ken­zie (LHVC) 51

Group 5: 1 Tyrese Sel­l­i­er (NCPD) 57, 2 Ezekiel Gan­ga (NCPD) 47, 3 Ethan Roberts (PAPGSS) 46

Group 6: 1 Curlan Williams (NCPD) 65, 2 Mario Pe­dro (PAPGSS) 61, 3 Luke Bere­ton LHVC) 54

Group 7: 1 Joshua Math­ews (PAPGSS) 63, 2 Ezekiel Mc In­tosh (LHVC) 60, 3 Am­rit Par­boo (LH­HG) 59, 4 Stef­fan Pavy (PAPGSS) 52, 5 Kimo­ra Pro­tain (LHSG) 49

Group 8: 1 Der­ron Ba­boolal (NCPD) 62, 2 De­von Ba­boolal (NCPD) 61, 3 Xavier Bax­am (NCPD) 60, 4 Sathro­han Shanon (LHSG) 58, 5 Kay­tashy­on Lennard (LH­HG) 55, 6 Jay­den Ayres (NCPD) 46

Group 9: 1 Je­re­mi­ah Bap­tiste (NCPD) 71, 2 Joshua Rankin (LH­HG) 68, 3 Jared Gomez (LHSG) 68, 4 Corey Conyette Rogers (LH­HG) 63, 5 Joshua Je­bodh (NCPD) 63, Zechari­ah Meade (LHSG) 57

Group 10: 1 Melis­sa Nanan (LH­HG) 67, 2 Ky­mani Wel­come (KWAIS) 62, 3 Vis­han­ta Dubar­ry (LH­HG) 61, 4 Khem­raj Su­chit (LH­HG) 58, 5 Eli­jah Kan­chan (KWAIS) 56

In­di­vid­ual Skills Con­test

Group 1: 1 Samuel Bona­parte (In­de­pen­dents) 47, 2 Chris­t­ian Williams (Memisa) 37, 3 Nigel Joseph (Memisa) 34, 4 Trevon Williams (Memisa) 34, 5 Joshua David (Memisa Cen­tre) 30, 6 Mar­tin Welch (Memisa) 24

Group 2: 1 Nicholas Per­ry­man (Memisa) 62, 2 Sher­wyn Per­ry­man (Memisa) 51, 3 An­to­nio Sorzano (In­de­pen­dents) 51, 4 Roshan Chat­ter­goon (In­de­pen­dents) 44, 5 Nathan Mclean (Memisa) 43, 6 Trevor O'Brien (Memisa) 43

Group 3: 1 Joel Ter­rick Trot­man (In­de­pen­dents) 83, 2 Sheron Richard­son (In­de­pen­dents) 79, 3 Ken­ton Fran­cois (In­de­pen­dents) 77, 4 Ny­ron Noel (In­de­pen­dents) 65, 5 Tami­ka Camp­bell (In­de­pen­dents) 62

Team Com­pe­ti­tion (Mixed)

Game 1: 1 Memisa 1, 2 NCPD 1, 3 LH­HG Com­bined 1

Game 2: 1 LH­HG Com­bined 2, 2 NCPD 2, 3 Memisa 2