South­side Elite and Quar­ters Unit­ed booked their spots in the Men’s Un­der-23 Di­vi­sion fi­nal of the South Zone Bas­ket­ball League "Big Four" play­offs. Both teams com­plet­ed 2-0 se­ries sweeps in their re­spec­tive semi­fi­nal matchups on Wednes­day night (Sep­tem­ber 16) at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do, set­ting up a thrilling show­down for the cham­pi­onship.

Elite, coached by for­mer na­tion­al women's play­er Melis­sa Guer­rero, with­stood a fierce sec­ond-quar­ter surge from the Kris­t­ian Alexan­der-coached Club En­ter­prise to earn an 81-70 vic­to­ry and se­cure their sweep.

​Elite came out fir­ing, es­tab­lish­ing a 28-19 ad­van­tage af­ter the open­ing pe­ri­od be­hind the high-scor­ing tan­dem of Mikiel Phillips and Ronal­do Palmer. How­ev­er, Club En­ter­prise re­fused to go down with­out a fight. Led by Nekayse Moore, who scored a team-high 26 points, and Josi­ah Paris (18), En­ter­prise mount­ed a 26-17 ral­ly in the sec­ond quar­ter to pull even at 45-45 by half­time.

​The con­test re­mained tight­ly con­test­ed in the third quar­ter be­fore Elite, who dom­i­nat­ed game one 97-57, be­gan to re­claim con­trol, hold­ing a slim 64-60 cush­ion head­ing in­to the fi­nal stan­za. In the fourth, Elite’s deep of­fen­sive ar­se­nal proved to be the dif­fer­ence. Phillips fin­ished with a match-high 25 points, while Palmer con­tributed 21. Cru­cial sup­port from Is­sac Ma­rine (16) and Jahiem Gra­ham (10) al­lowed South­side to seal the 11-point vic­to­ry and lock up their place in the fi­nal. Don­niel Scott added 10 points for En­ter­prise in the loss.

​In the sec­ond clash, the Kris­ten Marin-coached Quar­ters over­came a slow start to ex­tin­guish the Bronx Bull­dogs 79-66, com­plet­ing their own two-game sweep.

​Bronx, coached by Nicholas Go­sine, came out with ur­gency, edg­ing ahead 17-16 at the end of the first quar­ter be­hind strong play from Dar­i­on Sparks, who fin­ished with 20 points. How­ev­er, Quar­ters, which won the open­ing match of the se­ries 108-76, quick­ly found their rhythm in the sec­ond pe­ri­od, outscor­ing Bronx 21-16 to take a 37-33 lead in­to the half­time break.

​Quar­ters’ dy­nam­ic big three took full com­mand in the sec­ond half. Sim­ba Ed­wards put on an im­pres­sive scor­ing per­for­mance, pour­ing in a match-high 28 points. He was backed close­ly by Devin Collins, who tal­lied 25 points, and Justin Mitchell, who added 21. To­geth­er, the trio ac­count­ed for 74 of Quar­ters' 79 to­tal points.

​Quar­ters ex­pand­ed their lead to 60-50 by the end of the third pe­ri­od and held Bronx at bay through­out the fourth to se­cure the 13-point win. An­ton Skeete and Dex­ton Rouse each chipped in 10 points for Bronx, but it wasn't enough to stop Quar­ters from ad­vanc­ing to the cham­pi­onship se­ries.

Mean­while, the Men’s Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion re­sumes tonight as South­side Elite and Quar­ters Unit­ed seek to mir­ror their U-23 suc­cess and com­plete dual se­ries sweeps. Hold­ing 1-0 leads fol­low­ing de­ci­sive game one vic­to­ries, Quar­ters will clash with Po­lice Al­pha at 7 pm, while Elite takes on Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics at 8.30 pm. Both trail­ing squads will be fight­ing to ex­tend their sea­sons and force a de­cid­ing game three in Pleas­antville.

To­mor­row, the best-of-three se­ries semi­fi­nals in the boys' U-17 Di­vi­sion con­tin­ues with Bronx fac­ing off against Point Fortin Vet­er­ans Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my (PFVB­BA) in game one at 7 pm fol­lowed by the game two meet­ing be­tween Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics A ver­sus Cen­tral Ris­ing Stars at 8.30 pm.

Wednes­day's re­sults

Men’s U-23 Di­vi­sion

South Side Elite 81 (Mikiel Phillips 25, Ronal­do Palmer 21, Is­sac Ma­rine 16, Jahiem Gra­ham 10) vs Club En­ter­prise 70 (Nekayse Moore 26, Josi­ah Paris 18, Don­niel Scott 10). Quar­ters: 1st 28-19 (Elite), 2nd 45-45, 3rd 64-60 (Elite).

Quar­ters Unit­ed 79 (Sim­ba Ed­wards 28, Devin Collins 25, Justin Mitchell 21) vs Bronx Bull­dogs 66 (Dar­i­on Sparks 20, An­ton Skeete 10, Dex­ton Rouse 10). Quar­ters: 1st 17-16 (Bronx), 2nd 37-33 (Quar­ters), 3rd 60-50 (Quar­ters).

Match­es

Fri­day (Sep­tem­ber 18)

Men’s Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion (Game 2)

Po­lice Al­pha vs Quar­ters, 7 pm

Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics vs Elite, 8.30 pm

​

Sun­day (Sep­tem­ber 19)

Boys’ U-17 Di­vi­sion

Game 1: Bronx vs PFVB­BA, 7 pm

Game 2: Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics A vs Ris­ing Star, 8.30 pm