Mika­hail Williams’ mon­strous per­for­mance helped Po­lice emerge as the cham­pi­on of the South Zone Bas­ket­ball League on Fri­day night.

The for­ward notched 35 points to lift Po­lice past Team Elite, 84-72, in game three of the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion fi­nal at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (SRISA) in Pleas­antville, tak­ing the best in-three se­ries, 2-1.

The de­cider lived up to ex­pec­ta­tions but it was the po­lice of­fi­cers, who had won game one, 66-62, at the South­west Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (SWRISA) in Egypt, Point Fortin on March 22, pulling away in the fourth quar­ter for the even­tu­al com­fort­able win.

Play from the tip-off was even as the scores were tied at 21 at the end of the first quar­ter. The in­tense bat­tle con­tin­ued in­to the sec­ond ses­sion but Team Elite, boost­ed by young­ster Ja­son Fri­day (26) and Tyrik Singh (21), edged ahead by one (44-43) at the half.

In the third quar­ter, both teams matched each oth­er of­fen­sive­ly scor­ing 17 points as Team Elite, who lev­elled the se­ries af­ter seal­ing an 80-76 over­time win in game two the pre­vi­ous Fri­day at SRISA, held on to the one-point (61-60) lead head­ing to the fourth quar­ter.

How­ev­er, in the fi­nal ses­sion, the mo­men­tum shift­ed in favour of Po­lice, led by Williams with sup­port from Kern Alex­is (13) and Joel Hinds (10). The team dressed in grey and blue went on a run and outscored Elite, 24-11, to claim the 12-point win.

Ed­wards leads PFVB­BA to U-21 ti­tle

The day be­fore, it was the Point Fortin Vet­er­ans Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my (PFVB­BA) cel­e­brat­ing the Un­der-21 Di­vi­sion ti­tle af­ter al­so win­ning that se­ries, 2-1, get­ting a 76-63 vic­to­ry in game three over Hoop Na­tion.

Lead­ing the way was Sim­ba Ed­wards with a match-high 24 points in an­oth­er com­pet­i­tive af­fair at the Pleas­antville venue.

Af­ter PFVB­BA went 1-0 down in the se­ries fol­low­ing a low-scor­ing 54-51 de­feat at its SWRISA home al­so on March 22, the Point-Fortin-based team bounced back with a 63-50 win in game two.

In the de­cid­ing match, PFVB­BA nar­row­ly trailed in the first quar­ter, 22-21, be­fore mov­ing ahead 41-34 at the halfway mark. Hoop Na­tion, led by Ronal­do Palmer (22), tried to bat­tle back in­to con­tention in the third quar­ter but the Acad­e­my pi­lot­ed by Ed­wards with team­mates Fri­day (13) and Joshua Huyghue (12) giv­ing sup­port, forged fur­ther ahead 59-47.

Palmer and Hoop Na­tion did not fade though and with as­sis­tance from Isaac Ma­rine (13) and Dex­ion Rouse (10) al­most matched PFVB­BA bas­ket-for-bas­ket pour­ing in 16 points com­pared to its op­po­nent’s 17 but the dou­ble-dig­it deficit was too much to over­come and it was the Acad­e­my com­ing away with the 13-point win.

Game three re­sults

Fri­day

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion

Team Elite 72 (Ja­son Fri­day 26, Tyrik Singh 21, Sel­wyn Hills 8) vs Po­lice 84 (Mika­hail Williams 35, Kern Alex­is 13, Joel Hinds 10). Quar­ter scores: 1st 21-21; 2nd 44-43 (Elite); 3rd 61-60 (Elite). Po­lice won se­ries, 2-1.

Thurs­day

Un­der-21 Di­vi­sion

PFVB­BA 76 (Sim­ba Ed­wards 24, Ja­son Fri­day 13, Joshua Huyghue 12) vs Hoop Na­tion 63 (Ronal­do Palmer 22, Isaac Ma­rine 13, Dex­ion Rouse 10). Quar­ter scores: 1st 22-21 (Na­tion); 2nd 41-34 (PFVB­BA); 3rd 59-47 (PFVB­BA). PFVB­BA won se­ries, 2-1.