Yabra is national football champ
“Good evening, I’m James Adderley and you’ve just boarded for another flight on Sports Monday. Ten months ago the Belize Football League kicked off its season with twelve teams and after stoppages the champion finally emerged Saturday night.
Let’s head out to the Isidorio Beaton Stadium at Capital City for game two of the BFL championship series where Kulture Yabra could seal the title with a win on the road against the Builders Hardware Bandits.
Meanwhile, for two weeks in a row LOVE’s Terry Gordon becomes instrumental in the National Anthem presentation, only in game two he holds a flashlight for Lincoln Ebanks who comes up with his own rendition.
It’s indeed a championship atmosphere inside the stadium as the Bandits understand their role as host in this grand event. Down a game the Bandits go offensive immediately with this aerial attack but Charlie Slusher handles. Less than a minute later Julio Valle lets off this left foot that really presented little problems for the Yabra keeper.
Therefore its with more focus that Valle leaves his man defenseless to fire this right foot bomb with forces Slusher to display his stellar credentials. Now here’s a slow motion look at the game within the game – Julio Valle hits up top – Kello Leslie goes for the jaw. Meanwhile the City team finally impose a legitimate threat when Norman Nunez smacks this left foot shot which inches past the far upright and at the half we do have a scoreless ballgame.
Coming out of intermission the visiting team decides to go offensive so Nunez unleashes this powerful bomb that skates over the crossbar.
The Bandits counter with this spot kick from Julio Valle but again its Slusher on top of things. Now keep your eyes on this throw in, McCauley heads to Tilliman and the cords vibrates to give the city team and 1-zip lead.
It’s more Yabra when Kello Leslie boots from off the right side but it’s outside the target. Off the corner kick Julio Valle gets his opportunity for the equalizer but he looks the gift horse in the mouth. The Bandits nevertheless keeps pressing and this header spells big trouble for Yabra until Slusher settles.
Folks, we simply don’t know if this save from Slusher is good reflex or good luck but it becomes the most important one of the ballgame for Yabra. However, we do know that when Norman “Tilliman” Nunez receives this push from Kello Leslie, Tilliman scores a wonderful goal to give Yabra the 2-zip lead.
Still Yabra is not out of the woods yet because Wayne Wiltshire fresh off the bench comes up with the most beautiful goal that cuts the deficit in half, and George Tillett, could you show us this goal in slo-mo. It’s truly late in the ballgame but the Bandits have this opportunity to tie the score, guess what, Valle fails to execute and he’s their big man. At the long whistle brings Kulture Yabra to the top of the mountain.
And of course the party begins. The star of the show is Norman Nunez for sure and here’s what he had to say.”
Norman “Tilliman” Nunez
“Yes, certainly Yabra needed a victory to become the champions, it’s history for Yabra and I’m glad to be a part of it and we came out excellent today. I didn’t save the next best for last, but it was a big game and I like to play in big games, big games I come up big and that’s just it for me.”
James Adderley
“You’ve been the leader for this team all season long, were there any doubts in your mind when you began to falter those two games in the playoff?”
Norman Nunez
“Well, certainly we know we have a good team, we can bounce back anytime, we dropped in a little bit of a slump but that didn’t do us anything, we just got back together and we know where we are and we know where we stand and we just had to work hard and get back into the championship.”
James Adderley
“Now, you’re a man with a lot of victories, how do you rate this one?”
Norman Nunez
“This is one of the best victories because of the excellent goals scored and we played an excellent season and I have to give congratulations to my players, my goal keeper, they played their hearts out throughout this season, we had a lot of road blocks, a lot of mishaps but in the end we came up as a champion and that’s what its all about.”
James Adderley
“How big is this win for Vallan Symns?”
Vallan Symns
“It’s big, bigger than big, I like it.”
James Adderley
“So what is in the future for you?”
Vallan Symns
“I don’t know as yet.”
James Adderley
“Will you be back with Kulture Yabra?”
Vallan Symns
“James, I don’t know, I hope so?if Papa runs the team I will be there again next year.”
James Adderley
“What was your best moment this season?”
Vallan Symns
“My best moment in season is right now, the championship.”
“In the post game ceremony in Belmopan Saturday night Norman Nunez received the Regent Insurance Cup for his team and we say congratulations to Kulture Yabra. Among the awards issued by the BFL – Norman Nunez was voted Most Valuable Player and Best Forward, Jaheed Perera of Metro Stars – Best Midfield, Vallan Symns of Yabra – Best Defense, Charlie Slusher of Yabra – Best Keeper, David Trapp of Belmopan – Best Rookie, Rupert Palacio of Belmopan – Best Manager and Ian Mork of Belmopan – Best Coach.
Turning to the basketball scene we head to the Civic Center for Friday night’s rematch between BTL Nets and DataPro Raiders where the Raiders have jumped off to a fast start and its Kenroy Smith extending lead with this 3 pointer.
At the other end Ian “A.C.” Augustine finds the high arc to keep the Nets in the hunt. The Raiders come back with this long tre from Olin Simpliss. For Keith Acosta, it was the worst performance of the season, but he manages to get two points right here. While Kirk Smith was having a good game tonight and he strikes for two in the paint here and at the half it’s a 28-20 Raiders lead.
In this match the Nets will never lead and Kirk Smith keeps the pressure on immediately after intermission with this left hand.
Vince Estrada tries to keep his team going with this long tre over Kirk Smith, but Shabba has the last laugh with this unattended slam dunk.
And then Kenroy Smith with this spectacular dunk off the Darren Bovell miss seals the big 75-52 blowout to give the Raiders the victory.
