Sports Monday with Kaya Cattouse

Kaya Cattouse

Good evening Belize, with this week’s edition of Sport Monday, I’m Kaya Cattouse and I’ll be the face of Sports Monday for the next six weeks.

Let’s get right into Friday night’s action at the big Birds Isle in the National Elite Basketball League where we see the Smart No Limit team has home court advantage going up against the Western Ballaz. Kevin Domingo dishes the ball to Matthew Young who attempts to get on the scoreboard but is denied. Richard Troyer grabs the rebound and starts a new play and the Western Ballaz doesn’t hesitate to put the first two points on the board. Look at Richard Troyer again as he intercepts this long pass from Lindsey Lopez to Brian White and is later on fouled by Gregory Rudon and goes to the line to put down the two shots. Gregory Rudon takes this one directly to the basket folks. Here we see Gregory Rudon attempting this long triple which bounces off the rim and Roger Troyer takes control of the ball from here dribbling all the way down the court and making the layup look easy. Lindsey Lopez finds Gregory Rudon and he drives straight to the basket for 2 but is fouled by Ivan Flowers. Rudon sinks his two free throws. Ivan flowers almost threw away this ball trying to pass to Travis Lennan but Lennan quickly gets there and puts down 2 of his game high 18 points. Kirk Burgess shows that his size does matter when he handle this ball and takes a jump shot that hits nothing but net. Elsworth Itza picks up this loose ball and goes right up to the basket. Farron Lauriano tries to come up with a block but was unsuccessful. Kirk Burgess finds himself in the same situation but his time Elsworth Itza plays him close and Burgess misses. Itza quickly recovers the rebound. The Western Ballaz win the game 64 – 62 tying up the series 1 – 1. Game 3 plays at the Sacred Heart Auditorium in San Ignacio next weekend. In other semifinal game played at the UB Gymnasium in Belmopan, the Tigersharks turned the Point Bandits home court into their version of “La Isla Bonita” when they won the second game of the 3 game series granting themselves an invitation to the dance at the finals with a final game score of 78 -71.

At the MCC Grounds we see the fourth week of the Smart Mundialito 13 and under tournament. In the first game, Ladyville Jaguars defeated Third World two to one. Trivon Bainton and D’jon Canelo scored for Ladyville Jaguars while Jonah Chebat scored for Third World. Collect Strikers barely managed to meet Smart Brown Bombers. Janel David managed to put one on the scoreboard for Collect Strikers. Hattieville United defeated Carlston FC. Christian Caceres and Jaheed Baptist scored for Hattieville. London Strikers hekd heights FC to a one-one draw. Eshak king with the lone goal for London Strikers and Ronalt Witty for Heights FC. City Boys defeated Rising Stars with a score of one-nil. Akeem Sutherland scored the lone goal for the City Boys.

We now turn to the strongman competition where we see repeat champion Victor Valencia surpassing the test of strength seemingly effortlessly. Veteran Theo Gentle returned to the scene along with Valencia and they were joined by two rookies from the Capital City representing Muscle Hut; Allan Gallardo and Emir Perez. These four competitors subjected themselves to the test of ultimate strength showcasing their mental and physical abilities to nine different challenges…exuding the limit of our natural physical abilities. I spoke to these brawny muscle maniacs after the competition and here is what they had to say.

Victor Valencia

Victor Valencia, Winner, Strongman Competition

“Intense, intense training. Strength, endurance and obviously you have to have the mind for it also. It is not easy, but you have to have a mind for it and you can do it.”

Kaya Cattouse

“The nine events that you did today, which was your strongest?”

Victor Valencia

“The strongest was the SUV pulling; yeah that was the strongest. I just open the challenge to anybody who wah come prove their strength and endurance make dehn come next year.”

Emir Perez

Emir Perez, 3^rd Place, Strongman Competition

“Most definitely yes, I wah compete next year again. Just come out and have fun. I mean the competition, people are friendly. It is a great competition to come and start off ina Belize. if yo woulda compete ina it, ih guarantee yo woulda love it.”

Allan Gallardo, 4^th Place, Strongman Competition

“I started training a week ago and I entered the event, but my training has been power lifting for over a year and half already so for my body weight, the only reason I push that much is because I’ve been training probably for a year and a half.”

Allan Gallardo

Kaya Cattouse

“Do you plan to compete next year?”

Allan Gallardo

“Oh hell yes. I will compete. I rep in muscle hut so I will be back for muscle hut.”

Theo Gentle, 2^nd Place, Strongman Competition

“I come ina this competition with injury, but it hard fi retire. It hard fi just give it up. I bring mi kids dehn fi come watch it and I signed up and I just deh yah. The younger guys , dehn have wah lot of determination, lotta energy so I just barely get away with wah second from there.”

Winning the strongman completion was Victor Valencia with 32 points second place went to Theo Gentle with a total of 21 points. Emir Perez racked up 19 points and Allan Gallardo 18 points for the third and fourth place respectively.

Thanks for watching Sports Monday. Join us again next week for another edition of Sports Monday. Until then, I’m Kaya Cattouse.