Station Hill in President’s Cup winner’s row

THE Station Hill Cavaliers got off to a winning start against KFC Orange 3 Pinelands at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex on Tuesday evening and will go into the second semi-final next week with a +3, 57-54 advantage.

The President’s Cup semis, just as the previous round, will see the team with the highest total over the two games advance to the finals. Defending champions Station Hill have the advantage but it could have been so much more, having taken off in the first quarter, shocking confident Pinelands 21-6 after the first period. Pinelands were playing with an under the weather point-guard Deroni Hurley, the life of the team and could not get into a groove on the scoring end.

The second quarter contained a battle between forwards Dwayne Kellman of the Cavs and Charles Vanderpool of the Pine. Kellman had the number on Vanderpool early on with turn around, fade away jumpers cleaning the eyes of his defender. Station Hill unfortunately let that advantage be squandered over the quarter, taking their foot off the gas and only mustered 9 points in the quarter. Vanderpool got going midway through and used his height to his advantage and helped pull back the game with 8 points in the period. That allowed Pinelands to close the margin by ever so much, going into the half-time break down 11, 30-19.

Kellman, along with teammate Joel Hunte, continued to attack the defence, scoring the first 8 Cavalier points between them to start the second half.

But Rasheed Maynard started the half with a trey and then Pinelands basically lived at the free throw line for the rest of the quarter, scoring 6 from the line before Hurley sank another trey to end the third. It was a ding-dong battle, but Pinelands lost ground 48-35 by the start of the fourth.

Now Vanderpool may not have been murdering since the second quarter, but he was drawing fouls in the fourth. That put him at the line and forced some of the Cavaliers’ bigs to take a rest in foul trouble. Scoring 5 of his game-high 17 points at the charity stripe and motivating his teammates, Vanderpool pushed his side hard. The push worked and Station Hill started to unravel, seeing the lead fall to just 5, 50-45 with five minutes remaining. Then a huge three by Jason Smith of Station Hill, took the score to 53-45 and the Station Hill fans smelled the win. However, two big buckets by Maynard and more free throws by Vanderpool brought Pinelands within 3 with 45 seconds left. Cavs grabbed onto the defensive rebound after a last 3-point attempt by Maynard and Pinelands let the clock run down to fight again another day.

Hurley definitely was missed as the transition game for Pinelands was basically non-existent with only 8 fast-break points scored. That and an abysmal shooting performance from behind the arc of 2 of 17 was killing the challengers. Fortunately for Pinelands, Station Hill were having their own issues and turnovers started to play a part and the Cavs coughed up the ball on multiple possessions, giving Pine plenty opportunities to get back into the contest.

The three-point loss was a far cry better than the 16-point deficit faced earlier in the game. The second matchup is slated for next week and both sides will have time to rest up and review the basket of errors from Game 1. (AS)