Guyana evens the Border Clash score

WITH eight minutes left on the clock, Guyana took the lead in the Border Clash Basketball Series yesterday at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex and it would be a lead they would never re-linquish as they took Game 2, 70-64, to even the series and announce to Barbados they would have to fight to win.

It was 57-56 to Guyana after Guyana Captain Stanton Rose hit a step back trey, his only three of the game, to put his side up. He followed that up with a switch hand lay-up off the glass over Barbados Forward Charles Vanderpool to lift his team up by three, which caused Coach Nigel Lloyd of Barbados to call a time-out. It was a time-out that bore no fruit as the home team was outscored 20-10 in the final quarter as Guyana made a stamp on the three-game series with a performance which was significantly better than Game 1.

Guyana were down for the majority of the game, but were able to keep pace with Barbados even with Barbados Point Guard Jeremy Gill having another good game. Keefe Birkett was also playing well and the two – Gill and Birkett – ended up being the only two Bajan players in double-digits with 13 and 15 respectively. The visitors shot a horrible 27 per cent from the field, however it was realised early that the Barbadian defence of the key was poor and as such, there was a persistent attack of the paint. It resulted in 32 points in the paint from lay-ups and putbacks from offensive rebounds.

At half-time the score was 31-34 to Barbados and Guyana just needed to stay close before the strike in the second half. Barbados also had a bad night with the ball and turned the ball over 24 times, which the opponents converted into 24 fast break points. The defence was one other key with Guyana stealing the ball from the Bajan players an incredible 18 times. Another was rebounds; even in the last 25 seconds, they had two offensive rebounds, leaving Barbados scrambling and the coach shouting to foul to stop the clock, but it only resulted in a free dunk by Moe Anthony with six seconds left in the game.

Travis Burnett of Guyana started the aggressive attack of the paint for Guyana and caused the change in the tide. Even though he only played ten minutes, he put up 8 points with 3 steals. Harold Adams was the team-high scorer with 15 points, 5 rebounds and 3 steals. Moe Anthony, who controlled his temper and mouth a lot better in Game 2, was also able to let the basketball do the talking and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds. At the end the series was tied 1-1, with one game left to see who would be the victors in the KFC CEE Vision Sports Border Clash Basketball Series. It has to be seen which team finds the right combination to make it to the top. (AS)