New Chap­ter Acad­e­my (NCA) War­riors’ Jer­vais “JJ” Ed­wards-Carac­ci­o­lo ex­plod­ed for 24 points, in­clud­ing five three-point­ers, to en­sure that his team proud­ly brought home the Un­der-17 ti­tle from the Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Shootout (CIS) af­ter a thrilling fi­nal matchup against Pros­per ETX of Texas, USA.

NCA’s charge was led by a dy­nam­ic trio of Ed­wards-Carac­ci­o­lo, Josi­ah “Sticks” John-An­drew and Alex­ie Alex­is in the 66-60 vic­to­ry in the com­pe­ti­tion host­ed in Puer­to Ri­co, from Ju­ly 17-20.

From the open­ing tip, the game proved to be a bat­tle of grit and heart. De­spite falling be­hind by four points in the open­ing minute, the War­riors main­tained their com­po­sure. They skil­ful­ly broke Pros­per’s ag­gres­sive full-court press and at­tacked the bas­ket pos­ses­sion af­ter pos­ses­sion, cap­i­tal­is­ing on every op­por­tu­ni­ty—es­pe­cial­ly off missed shots from Pros­per’s dan­ger­ous three-point shoot­ers.

Both teams made strate­gic de­fen­sive ad­just­ments ear­ly on. Pros­per switched to a half-court 1-3-1 zone, but NCA re­spond­ed with their sig­na­ture “Box & Dawg” de­fence. Stand­out de­fend­er

Zion Roberts held Pros­per’s star play­er to just two points—an im­pres­sive feat that set the tone de­fen­sive­ly for the T&T-based team.

At half­time, the War­riors trailed by just two points, 33-35.

The sec­ond half con­tin­ued at a blis­ter­ing pace, with both teams bat­tling hard on the boards.

Ed­wards-Carac­ci­o­lo’s match-high 24, which in­clud­ed five three-point­ers, as he proved un­stop­pable in tran­si­tion. John-An­drew added 17 points and sev­en re­bounds, de­liv­er­ing two clutch three-point­ers late in the game from the same spot. Alex­is came up big with 12 points and six re­bounds, go­ing a per­fect 6-for-6 from the free-throw line when it mat­tered most.

Grena­di­an for­ward Ori Iko­lo dom­i­nat­ed the glass with a game-high 13 re­bounds, adding five points in the process.

Though Pros­per ETX kept the pres­sure on with ac­cu­rate perime­ter shoot­ing, it was the War­riors’ dis­ci­pline, team­work, and de­fen­sive stops that proved de­ci­sive. With eight min­utes to go, back-to-back threes from Josi­ah John-An­drew swung mo­men­tum in NCA’s favour. The War­riors held on for a hard-fought 66-60 vic­to­ry.

“Key de­fen­sive stops, box­ing out, and six straight free throws from Alex­ie sealed the deal for us,” said head coach Kern George. “We knew Pros­per would come out with fire af­ter los­ing to us in the group stage. We tasked Eli­jah Roberts with the job of shad­ow­ing their top play­er, and he de­liv­ered with heart and hus­tle.”

NCA al­so field­ed both a U-16 & U-19 team. The U-16 team lost in the quar­ter­fi­nal round, and the U-19 team lost in the semi­fi­nal against Mid­land Gators.

With this ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al win un­der their belt, the NCA U-17 War­riors are now back home and fo­cused on cap­tur­ing the North Zone Cham­pi­onship ti­tle this Au­gust.