Ah­keel "Smal­ly" Boyd, Tyrik Singh, Jael Lewis and Je­lani Val­ley of the Mal­oney Pac­ers Bas­ket­ball Club won the Na­tion­al Open 3x3 Men's Tour­na­ment at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (SRISA) in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do on Thurs­day night.

Mal­oney Pac­ers (Yel­low) team de­feat­ed Va­len­cia Heat team in the fi­nal, 22-14, in the com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) which saw 19 teams bat­tling for su­prema­cy.

It came down to the Pac­ers and Heat. Singh top­scored with 12 points and Boyd added eight for the cham­pi­on, while for Heat, Richard Guisep­pi and Randy Greenidge scored four points each and Fab­rice Fish­er and Dex­ter Morien added three apiece.

Ear­li­er, Mal­oney Pac­ers (Yel­low) reached the fi­nal af­ter de­feat­ing its Green team of Jadon Daniel, Le­shaun "Ken­ny" Al­fred, Aaron Patrick and Ay­o­de­ji "Ain't" Iwaro, 21-6 in the first se­mi-fi­nal. In the oth­er semi­fi­nal, Heat edged Strak­er Nets (Tris­ton Ben­jamin, Sadi­ki Guer­ra, Al­lis­ter Mar­tin, Jer­rell Door­bal), 16-15.

In the third-place match-up, Mal­oney Pac­ers (Green) team was vic­to­ri­ous de­feat­ing Strak­er Nets, 20-10.

NBFTT pres­i­dent Lt./Col Ja­son Hills ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to the na­tion­al 3x3 cham­pi­on team Mal­oney Pac­ers Club and all 19 teams that par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The tour­na­ment was or­gan­ised to al­low T&T an op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn valu­able points in the NBFTT's ef­forts to qual­i­fy both the men's and women's teams for the Pan Amer­i­can Games, which is sched­uled for Chile in Oc­to­ber/No­vem­ber.

The 19 teams in the tour­na­ment were from the South Zone (7), North (6) and East (6). Match­es were played at three venue, SRISA, St Paul's Street Mul­ti­pur­pose In­door Sports Fa­cil­i­ty and the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na.

The NBFTT pres­i­dent al­so thanked the ref­er­ees and ta­ble of­fi­cials, the three zones and the NBFTT's or­gan­i­sa­tion and de­vel­op­ment com­mit­tee.