The Weekend in Sports

Goodnight and welcome to another edition of Sports Monday, I am Paul Lopez. American Soccer Player Abby Wambach famously said, “You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit.” And in the face of losing their opportunity to make it onto the podium, the Belize Senior Men’s Volleyball Team had to give it their all on Saturday night inside the Belize City Civic Center to win at least one set in their match against Nicaragua. Knowing what was on the line, Nicaragua came out with the intent to take the game in three sets. That would have certainly secured a third place for the Nicaraguan national team and leave Belize’s fans disappointed. In the words of Allan Sharp, the President of the Belize Volleyball Association, in Belize there are no fans like volleyball fans. And in the sea of Belizean supporters, one Nicaraguan fan proudly waved her flag in celebration of her home team.

Paul Lopez, Reporting

The first point of the match goes to Nicaragua off the attack, team Belize unable to successfully execute the block. In short order, team Belize responded with this massive attack from number six, Francis Hauze. Just ahead of the second technical timeout, Francis Hauze is up to serve. Ball is set to number two for Nicaragua. Flowers is right there but that one proved to be too much for him. Game point for Nicaragua, with Kaelen Ingram up to serve, and he serves that one out of bounds. Set number one goes to Nicaragua. Team Belize got off to a good start in the second set with this beautiful and effective play.

The ball is in play. That is a free ball for team Belize, Anderson with the set to Kerwin Palacio who makes easy work of the attack to give Belize a two-point lead. Ernest Broaster Jr. with the serve and Nicaragua is unable to pick that one up. That is an ace for Broaster as the match enters the first technical timeout for the second set. Up by ten points with only two points needed to complete the set, Broaster takes the serve, passes to Anderson who jumps and catches Nicaragua sleeping at the net. Team Belize would go on to win the set. As we said, they only needed to win one set to prevent Nicaragua from accumulating enough points to take the bronze medal. Winning the second set secured Bronze for team Belize. They would, however, loose the match, an inconsequential loss at the end of the tournament.

And so, team Belize did not realize the gold medal that they had their minds set on going into the tournament, but as the team has done for consecutive years, they made it to the podium.

Albert Humes

Albert Humes, Head Coach, National Senior Men’s Volleyball Team

“For the senior male tournament I have been coaching for many years and this has been the closest in the high-level of competition we had where one team win one night, lose the other night, it’s just a constant roller coaster, and we don’t know what. But, this is one of the most beautiful tournaments we have played in many years. Belize we fell short. We need to go back to the drawing board to see what pieces we need to add or tweak or so forth to garner that gold the next time around.”

Elton Anderson

Elton Anderson, Captain, National Senior Men’s Volleyball Team

“It was a very hard tournament. We never got the first. But, in Belize right now it is like a medal wave and we are glad we got we just placed third after all the hard work. It was a lot of sleepless and tired nights. We had three great games and three not so great games, but we gave it our all and left it all on the floor.”

So in the end, team Belize walked away with a bronze medal. In the individual awards category, Ernest Broaster received the Second Best Striker Award, Karym Coleman received the Best Opposite Award and Raheem Flowers got the Best Receiver Award.

And from Volleyball we move into some basketball action. We are talking about the highly anticipated William Dawson, Sprite/Digi Youth Basketball “All-Star Saturday”.  The rivalry between Team Chester and Team Kareem is the main feature of the all-star Saturday. This one was no different. Led by Minister Kareem Musa, team Kareem’s roster was stacked with Hubert Baptist, Raheem Baptist, Devin Moody, Gabriel Taylor and much more familiar faces like Indira Craig. Team Chester was led by the Commissioner of Police Chester Williams alongside seasoned players like Luwani Cayetano, Travis Baptist, Sheldon Williams, Randy Henry, and familiar faces like Minister Henry Charles Usher, Giovanni Brackett and Jules Vasquez.

Here is the tip off to start the match and team Kareem takes control of the ball. Confused there for a bit, Ms Craig launches a defense against her own teammate. They quickly recover, but Musa commits the first turnover of the match. Ball to Luwani Cayetano for team Chester who makes light work of the layup on the other end of the court. Luwani Cayetano with the ball on top the arc. He passes ComPol Williams in the paint. Williams under the rim for the layup and that one is way off.  Cayetano to Minister Usher who is being defended by Minister Musa, back to Cayetano, and the drive in for the easy bucket. ComPol Williams comes out for the ball and he folds under the defense of Indira Craig, passing off the rock.

Devin Moody with the ball on the other end. The ball gets into the hands of Hubert Baptist in the paint who goes up and makes the two points. A foul is called on ComPol Williams for holding Baptist on the way up to the rim. The pass from Williams to Usher, Usher with the assist and the layup. On for team Chester in the second quarter are Jules Vasquez and Giovanni Bracket. The ball is passed to Vasquez. He attempts a three-point shot and falls way short. Pass to Giovanni Brackett inside the paint. Brackett is unable to make the basket of the high jumping defender. On the other end of the court, Raheem Baptist sprints to the rim to make the layup count. Team Kareem would go on to win the match seventy-one baskets to team Chester’s fifty-six. Notably, none of the team captains made it onto the score sheet during the forty minutes of play time. The MVP of the match went to Team Chester’s Travis Baptist.

Other highlights of the All-Star Saturday included the Slam Dunk Competition and the Three-Point Shoot Out. Joshua Bailey claimed the title of Slam Dunk King. The judges gave him full scores for his first dunk. This is the high-flying dunk that sealed the deal for Bailey earning him the victory. The three-point shootout contest went to Jameer Young.

Well folks, that is all we have for you in this week’s coverage of Sports Monday. Catch you on the next one.