Lo­cal bas­ket­ball tal­ents Ashan­ti Phillips, Tyrik Singh and Shaquille Bertrand are now based in the US as the three play­ers were grant­ed ath­let­ic schol­ar­ships over the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion to pur­sue their aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic en­deav­ours.

Ashan­ti Phillips of Sto­ries of Suc­cess (SOS) Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my and Tyrik Singh who was most re­cent­ly a part of the Mal­oney Pac­ers Bas­ket­ball Club and Youth De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme both re­ceived schol­ar­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties fol­low­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in this year’s 25/8 Ex­po­sure Camp host­ed an­nu­al­ly by T&T non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, Caribbean Hoops.

Phillips, who is the first schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent out of SOS, has suit­ed up for the Sheri­dan Col­lege Gen­er­als in Wyoming. The six-foot-two-inch post play­er was ex­cit­ed about her new jour­ney and was look­ing for­ward to rep­re­sent­ing T&T in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Phillips said, "I was so ex­cit­ed that my dream turned in­to a re­al­i­ty. When I first heard about the schol­ar­ship op­por­tu­ni­ty, I was in­deed shocked, but I was hap­py to put my­self in a po­si­tion to take my game to the next lev­el."

Tow­er­ing at six-foot-sev­en-inch, swing­man Tyrik Singh com­mit­ted to Mc­Cook Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege in Ne­bras­ka. The for­mer Un­der-19 na­tion­al team co-cap­tain said, "I am ex­treme­ly grate­ful for Caribbean Hoops and all the coach­es that helped me get to the po­si­tion that I am in cur­rent­ly."

Singh al­so has pos­i­tive sights on his aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits.

"In my fi­nal year at Mc­Cook, I will be re­ceiv­ing an as­so­ciate of arts de­gree. When that oc­curs, my next step is to move on to a Di­vi­sion I pro­gramme to fin­ish my de­gree in busi­ness and play at the high­est lev­el," said the 21-year-old.

Mal­oney Pac­ers’ Bertrand is now study­ing and play­ing at Cen­tral Ari­zona Col­lege (CAC) in Coolidge, Ari­zona. This came fol­low­ing a vis­it to T&T by CAC men’s bas­ket­ball pro­gramme head coach, Tra­maine Aaron, dur­ing the school break.

The Mal­oney-based club mem­bers were in full view of coach Aaron, along with for­mer Pac­ers schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent Shel­don Pe­ter­son. The ses­sions, which were or­gan­ised by the club’s head coach Christo­pher Jack­son Charles, took place over two days.

As the ses­sions con­clud­ed, Bertrand was at the fore­front to join the CAC Va­que­ros.

While his goal is to dom­i­nate on the court, Bertrand will al­so aim to ad­vance him­self aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in the field of sports man­age­ment.