Matthew Pierre Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my (MP­BA) emerged as the dom­i­nant team in the BP T&T-spon­sored Ma­yaro Bas­ket­ball League, walk­ing away with the li­on's share of the ma­jor tro­phies when the league held its di­vi­sion­al fi­nals and prize-dis­tri­b­u­tion func­tion for the 2018/2019 sea­son at the Ma­yaro In­door Sport­ing Fa­cil­i­ty last Sat­ur­day.

Coached by for­mer na­tion­al stand-out Matthew Pierre, MP­BA won the cham­pi­onship fi­nals in both the Se­nior and Un­der-19 Di­vi­sions in grand style, tak­ing sev­er­al of the in­di­vid­ual awards as well. For good mea­sure, Pierre was vot­ed coach of the tour­na­ment.

In the fi­nal of the Se­nior Di­vi­sion, MP­BA led from the first whis­tle to coast to a re­sound­ing 94-76 vic­to­ry over a lack-lus­tre T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, with for­mer na­tion­al play­er Stephen “Lighter” Lewis vir­tu­al­ly light­ing up the court with his eye-catch­ing dex­ter­i­ty. Lewis was se­lect­ed MVP of the fi­nal.

MP­BA came up against stiffer com­pe­ti­tion in the Un­der-19 Di­vi­sion in Arou­ca-based New Age Li­ons, even­tu­al­ly emerg­ing cham­pi­ons with a hard-earned 84-79 vic­to­ry. New Age Li­ons, how­ev­er, cap­tured the Un­der-16 di­vi­sion­al cham­pi­onship, over­com­ing Grande All Stars in a top­sy-turvy en­counter, 43-38.

The Ma­yaro Bas­ket­ball League is or­gan­ised by the South Cor­ner Bas­ket­ball Foun­da­tion (SCBF) with BP Trinidad as its main spon­sor. It is fa­cil­i­tat­ed by All-Ma­yaro Sports Foun­da­tion (AMSF), found­ed by BPTT to dri­ve the de­vel­op­ment of sports in the south-east­ern com­mu­ni­ties.

Matthew Pierre, who is BPTT's com­mu­ni­ty li­ai­son of­fi­cer, said the com­pa­ny was “proud and de­light­ed” to be the main spon­sor of the league, as­sur­ing of­fi­cials and play­ers of BPTT's com­mit­ment to the league in the years ahead. The sport in the re­gion, he as­sert­ed, had a lot of po­ten­tial to nur­ture pro­fes­sion­al play­ers. Pierre con­grat­u­lat­ed both AMSF and SCBF for a smooth or­gan­i­sa­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of the com­pe­ti­tions.

The BPTT rep­re­sen­ta­tive said it was, “very heart­en­ing” that sev­er­al of the clubs field­ed ju­nior teams, there­by en­sur­ing the sus­tained de­vel­op­ment of the sport in the wider south-east­ern re­gion.

Jame­son Rigues, cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, AMSF, said the stan­dard of bas­ket­ball dis­played dur­ing the sea­son was ex­cep­tion­al. He urged the peo­ple of Ma­yaro to come out in full force to sup­port the sport­ing tal­ent in the re­gion. Rigues as­sured the re­gion's sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty that AMSF was will­ing to as­sist all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, de­liv­er­ing on its man­date from BPTT.

MA­JOR RE­SULTS OF THE 2018-2019 MA­YARO BAS­KET­BALL LEAGUE

Se­nior Di­vi­sion - Cham­pi­ons: Matthew Pierre Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my

Run­ners-up: Trinidad & To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice

Third Place: RL­RA Am­bas­sadors

Un­der-19 Di­vi­sion - Cham­pi­ons:Matthew Pierre Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my

Run­ners-up: New Age Li­ons

Third Place: Grande Young Stars

Un­der-16 Di­vi­sion - Cham­pi­ons: New Age Li­ons

Run­ners-up: Grande Young Stars

Third Place: Matthew Pierre Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my

In­di­vid­ual Awards - Se­nior Di­vi­sion: MVP (League): Dex­ter Box­hill (MP­BA)

MVP (Fi­nal): Stephen “Lighter” Lewis (MP­BA)

Most Points: Mikhail Williams (RL­RA) - 353

Most 3-point­ers: Nathan Lewis (MP­BA) - 87

Un­der-19 Di­vi­sion - MVP: Amit Singh (MP­BA)

Most 3-point­ers: Amit Singh (MP­BA) - 15

Most Points: Joel Tim­o­thy (New Age Li­ons) - 110

Un­der-16 Di­vi­sion - MVP: Kadeem Robert­son (New Age Li­ons).