Yabra wins game one of B.F.L. final

Good evening I’m James Adderley and you’re locked into another serving of Sports Monday. The eagerly awaited B.F.L. football championship series kicked off yesterday at the M.C.C. Grounds, with Kulture Yabra of Belize City playing host to Builders Hardware Bandits of Belmopan.

We start with the image of the new ragamuffin bleachers, which shows maximum improvement for Game I of the three-game title series. With the cassette tape damaged, the emcee at the M.C.C., Terry Gordon, improvises with a vocal rendition and say what you may, it works.

Immediately David McCauley fires up the home crowd with this left foot missile that crashes harmlessly into the side of the net.

It’s more Yabra offence when Kello Leslie deals to Norman “Tilliman” Nunez who can’t make the connection. So the Bandits gets busy and do look impressive in this drive, until the crucial centre, which is easily corralled by Charlie Slusher.

Does Belmopan really want to get on the scoreboard? This botched header from Julio Valle says no. Still it’s all Bandits right now as the Edmund “The Buzzard” Pandy finds a supporting cost on this drive, but its Charlie Slusher who emerges the star.

At the other end Rogel Jones launches this vicious left foot that just inches outside the sticks. Meanwhile, this spotkick provides the Bandits with a nice scoring opportunity, but again Slusher intervenes.

Now it’s Julio Valle from point-blank range, but the left foot inches over the crossbar. It’s the final minute of the half when Gigante Perez floats to Donnie Tun and his header gives Yabra a 1-zip lead to take to intermission.

So we go to second half and Yabra comes out firing, but Shane Moody handles. Kello Leslie then gets this centre from Donnie Tun, he but can’t make use of it.

This centre from Tilliman should provide goal number two, but Gigante Perez pushes the pill right at Moody. It’s a last gasp run for the Bandits when Julio Valle centres, but the speeding striker overruns the ball and when the long whistle blows it brings a game one victory for the city team. The scene now shifts to Belmopan Saturday night where the Bandits must win to stay alive.

Now lets head to the City Centre for the NORCECA volleyball qualifier and we join the opening ceremonies as team Belize gets presented after the Guatemalans.

Belize got off to a roaring start against Guatemala with a monster smash to the right side from Joseph Enriquez. Ernest Broaster shows perfect blocking here to get Belize a point. The National Team would go on to win the series in a 3-1 finish. And there’s no better way to celebrate the big W as displayed by this pair of Belizean females.

On Saturday night’s ticket it was another win for team Belize, who blanked El Salvador 3-zip. Unfortunately Belize was the victim of a blanking itself by Costa Rica in the gold medal game as we fell 25-22, 25-17 and 25-14. The spiking of Belize was effectively shut down by the tough Costa Ricans team, who moves on to the NORCECA Senior Championships at Barbados in August. Nevertheless, we say good show to president Clement Usher and the entire volleyball community.