San Cas and Raiders to meet in finals
James Adderley
Good evening, I’m James Adderley and you’re right on time for this Belizean dish of Sports Monday. Orange Walk Music Centre came to the City Centre Friday night needing a win to force a decisive game three against five time champion Raiders.
At centre court Wendell Robinson of Orange Walk faces Thomas Gillespie for tip off in Capital Life basketball play, and we’re into forty minutes of drama. Roger Favela might have forgotten which colours he’s wearing tonight or else he’s just careless with the throw in, so Dwight Myvette makes him pay with 2 points.
At the other end the men who scored 40 points for Orange Walk in game one against the Raiders, Jaheedi Simmons, replies with a rainbow triple. But keep your eyes on Thomas Gillespie because he’s the Raiders go-to man in this one.
Of course, Wendell Robinson ain’t about to be shown up, so he fires back. Another O.W. big man, Alcobedi, the Mexican, decides to display his range from long distance and its money in the bank.
But like we said, lookout for Gillespie, and Dwight Myvette does just that as the big man delivers. On the very next possession Myvette again hooks up with Gillespie who soars for 2. Bart Sanchez then challenges the O.W. offence, make that the O.W. defence and goes glass for 2.
At the half, the Raiders have run up a 14-point lead over Orange Walk.
In second half action the Raiders re-establish superiority immediately–Myvette to Gillespie, and he abuses Alcobedi.
In the meantime, Jaheedi Simmons was not the prolific scorer tonight that O.W. needed him to be. Although he does get one to fall right here, but you can sense his mounting frustration. Jaheedi wants 3 and he gets 3 as Orange Walk cuts the lead to 8. But the Raiders come right back as Bart Sanchez successfully takes Jaheedi to the rim.
Meanwhile, Gillespie, who had been working on the inside all night, steps back for 3 and hits nothing but the bottom of the net. It’s really Thomas Gillespie’s night people as he goes right through Robinson for the bucket and the foul, which he would convert.
Big man Damon Ollie then takes advantage of Derek Adderley as the Raiders go on to post the 89-68 big W and just like that are into the finals against San Cas U.B.
James Adderley
“This was not the best game Orange Walk Music Centre could have played. And tonight I thought you collapse, the team as a whole collapsed.”
Roger Favela, Captain, O.W. Music Centre
“Well the whole thing was defence. We couldn’t stop them game one and game two we couldn’t stop them. It’s a game of defence, if you stop them, you don’t have to put so much pressure on scoring every time down. That’s why we put ourselves in a lot of pressure trying to score every time down because we never stop them. When we did make our run, if you look at it we played good defence for that 8 minute stretch, but other than that, not enough defence.”
James Adderley
“How does it feel going into the championship for a sixth time for you?”
Bart Sanchez, Captain, Raiders
“That’s impressive, I like that feeling. That’s what you play for, to reach the finals and to win championship. That’s what it’s all about.”
Meanwhile folks, San Cas U.B. eliminated Kaus at Corozal by 4 points Saturday night. Thus the five game championship series gets underway this Friday night at the City Centre. the Raiders against the number one seed, San Cas U.B. Who will it be? Your guess is as good as mine.
Turning to the football scene, the fallout from the Andrew Brown incident has now reached the very heart of the Belizean football structure, as today we received a press release from the Belize Premier Football League heralding its severance of ties with the national body, the Football Federation of Belize, headed by Dr. Bertie Chimilio. President Maito Perdomo was quite clear about this new development.
Maito Perdomo, President, Bz. Premier Football League
“Saturday we had an extraordinary meeting, as I mention in our last interview, we would meet with the owners, and we had an extraordinary meeting Saturday. Unanimously, it was agreed that we will breakaway from the F.F.B. until certain changes happen within the F.F.B. that the administration of football gets back on a correct tracking.
This is I think the first time in the history of Belize that this has ever happened. We’ve been members of CONCACAF under first the B.N.F.A. and now the Football Federation of Belize, so it has not happened anytime before. However, the administration of football has not been run properly. The contravening of its statutes, just the way the Football Federation does things, has left all the owners and saying, we are investing all our monies in this and we can’t even get information out of them. So it’s really open, I can’t tell you what direction it will take. I know we will probably be sanctioned by the international body, we’ve known that things like this have happened in other countries, it takes maybe a year, two years to resolve. For example, it happened in Panama and it was resolved a couple of years ago, but they did get their house in order and things are running pretty good there right now.”
James Adderley
“With the withdrawal, CONCACAF play certainly gets less opportunity to present itself in the year 2002.”
Reynaldo Malik, Deputy Commissioner, B.P.F.L.
“Well of note here James is that both our current champion, Kulture Yabra, as well as the sub-champion from last season, Builder’s Hardware Bandits, and the current sub-champions Juventus Stars, all accepted that once we withdrew from the F.F.B. that it would be virtually impossible for us to compete in CONCACAF any at all for at least another two years. This was something that they weighed and they accepted it, and we’re gonna move on.”
For most football fans this fallout is a heart-wrenching affair. Belizean football will be split into two camps. For a nation that has not picked up a win in CONCACAF Nations Cup play ever, things are getting from bad to worse. Of course, we’ll keep you posted because the Belize Premier Football League could be a renegade football organisation or the Football Federation of Belize could go the way of the dinosaurs.
Those are the odds, life is real, we hope that all football fans will take a careful look at this situation. But more importantly, we hope that the football leaders will understand that some compromise has got to be reached right about now. CONCACAF football will obviously disappear for a long time if we cannot get our house in order.
That’s our show for today, we certainly want to thank our cameramen for their great work. Jah over all, I’m James Adderley.
