Belize Secures Historic Bronze in 2023 CODICADER Games

Goodnight and welcome to another edition of Sports Monday, I am Paul Lopez. “Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character”. That is a quote from former American Basketball Coach, John Wooden. And character is what the William Dawson 2023 Sprite/Digi Youth Basketball Tournament is developing in its participants.  The tournament continued on Saturday in Burrell Boom Village. All twenty-four teams remain in the competition, including those from Belize City, in spite of the fact that several communities in the Old Capital are under a State of Emergency. We begin our coverage of Saturday’s games with the matchup between Mahogany Heights and Fort George.

Paul Lopez, Reporting

We are in the first quarter of this one. The ball is thrown in to Mahogany Height’s Isiah Martinez. He goes in and dishes it out. Martinez moves to the three-point line, he shoots and banks that shot. Here number three for Fort George breaks away with the ball. He is outnumbered by the defense and for some strange reason throws the ball into the back court. That is a turn over. Moments later, Mahogany Height’s Jerson Grinage gets the ball on the three-point line. He drives in with the ball, swings his hands to the left of the rim and banks the basket. On the other end of the court, Kiffer McKenzie receives the ball inside the paint and goes in strong to bank the layup.  McKenzie with the ball once again, he uses the pick. McKenzie moves into the paint, receives the ball and passes it to his teammate under the rim who banks the layup and draws the foul. Martinez moves the ball down the court and throws up the alley hoop for Kendale Clare who makes it count with a beautiful touch. The first half of the match ended with a score of eight baskets to seventeen in favor of Fort George.

Now in the second half, Jerson Grinage passes the ball on the baseline. His teammate misses the three-point shot. But, Martinez is right there to get the rebound and clean up for the basket. On the other end of the court, number nine for Fort George dishes the ball in the paint to number three who puts up a jump fade away shot and makes it count. On this play, number eleven goes in strong for the layup. He draws the foul on his way up and he banks the shot. Off the missed shot, the ball is tossed across the court to McKenzie on the other end who makes light work of the layup. With thirty-one baskets each and only seconds left in the fourth quarter, a player for Fort George is at the free throw line hoping to seal this one. His first free throw bounces off the rim. His second free throw falls short of the rim.

Mahogany Heights now has a five-second opportunity to win this one. The ball is thrown in to Martinez he sprints down the court and misses the layup. Number eleven puts it back up under the rim and it’s no good. Fort George would go on to win the game in overtime after two of Mahogany Height’s six players that showed up that day fouled out of the game.  That one ended forty baskets to thirty-four. And we will quickly take you through a second game played on Saturday, this one is between 501 Falcons and Unruly Boyz. The starting whistle is blown and Unruly Boyz win the tip. They waste no time in scoring the first two points of the match. On the other end of the court, Jordan Young goes in strong and finds Justin Bailey under the rim. He makes the basket and draws the foul. Number five, Hubert Baptist, with the hustle under the rim and puts it back to secure two points for Unruly Boyz.

Baptist with the ball under the rim. The pass goes over to Raheem Thurton who makes the spin around jump fade look easy. Jordan Young takes the ball down the court. He seems to draw a foul but there is no whistle. He goes up and scores the basket. In the second quarter of the match, the ball is passed to Thurton. He muscles his way inside against a big Raymond Gongora and makes the layup count. Wayne Leslie to Young, back to Leslie and back to Young who goes over and under for two points.

We are in the second half of this one, with 501 Falcons trailing behind by one point. Young with the ball. He passes to Leslie, pass to Luwani Cayetano, and that is money. Ball to Thurton who once again uses his size advantage to go up and make the basket count. Thurton with the bounce pass D’Andre Arana under the rim. Arana goes up and makes the basket. That was a beautiful find by Thurton. Here is Cayetano once again with the hot hands as he makes the two-point shot just inside the arc. A bit of frustration sets in here for Unruly Boyz at the end of the fourth quarter. A police officer intervened as teammates Baptist and Arana got into a heated argument. But, that flare up evaporated quickly after the game concluded.

In the end, 501 Falcon won the game thirty to twenty-one points in overtime. Following the matches we spoke with Douglas Hyde, the Chairman of the Tournament about the continuation of the games in the midst of an SOE in certain parts of Belize City.

Douglas Hyde

Douglas Hyde, Chairman, William Dawson Sprite/Digi Basketball

“There are twenty-four teams are involved in this competition under the SOE still. What we have done is that the SOE has specific persons they are targeting. All these players are not part of that. Most of these players have reached a level of they want to do better in life. The intervention is very important and we support it. The commissioner of police, the police department, as you can see the police officers who are out here working are supportive of this initiative. As you can see the teams out here are here to play ball.”

This weekend, the highly anticipated all-star showdown between Team Kareem and Team Chester will take place at the Yabra Green Basketball Court in Belize City.

And now for some volleyball action, Sunday saw the start of the 2023 Men’s Central American Volleyball Championship inside the Belize City Civic Center. In their first match of the tournament, Belize’s Senior Men’s National Team took on El Salvador. That game came down to a decisive fifth set. In the end, El Salvador was able to gain the edge over team Belize to win the match. Notwithstanding the loss, Belize dominated the game in both blocks and attacks. Belize scored fifty-eight attacks to El Salvador’s fifty-seven. Team Belize also scored fourteen blocks to their opponent’s eight. But ultimately it was El Salvador’s Rodrigo Chavez that showed out. The top scorers for team Belize were Karym Coleman with twenty points, seventeen of those were attack points, and Francis Hauze with twenty points. Sixteen of his points were from attacks.

And finally for tonight, we say congratulations to the Belize’s Male Under- Fifteen Basketball Team for securing the bronze medal in the CODICADER Games 2023. Team Belize took on Nicaragua on Sunday in the bronze medal match inside the Saint Catherine Auditorium. They won the match with fifty-four baskets to Nicaragua’s thirty-two baskets. This will go down as yet another historic victory for Belize in basketball.

And that is all we have for you in tonight’s coverage of Sports Monday. Catch you in the next one.