Under 17 team ready for CARICOM games

Who could forget the excitement of last year’s CARICOM Basketball Tournament? Well the games are back again, this time in Guyana and this time it is for the under seventeen teams. Arreini Palacio was at the City Center today to meet the Belize team which leaves on the 14th.

Fred Gabourel, Coach

“I think we can compete and I feel we will make the top three and hopefully the number one team.”

Q: “Do you think that Belize has something to prove?”

Fred Gabourel

“Yes, definitely. We are senior champs and I hope we can be junior champs also.”

The under 17 team will be meeting the younger version of CARICOM basketball rivals from Jamaica, Bahamas, Guyana and Barbados. Despite the fact that the Belize team has only been practicing for three weeks coach Fred Gabourel feels they have nothing to worry about once they stick to the game plan.

Fred Gabourel

“I think we have team chemistry right now with certain people. And what we are trying to do is add people who have been playing out of position, because you never know in a game people would have to play out of position and they will still have to do the job.”

The twin tower center forwards of the team, standing at 6’3″ and 6’4″ and still growing, are more than ready for the competition.

Englebert Cherrington, Player

“I feel very confident in my team. I think that they can go to Guyana and win it all.”

Chaka Lightburn, Player

“I feel good because it is the first time I am going and I am going to get experience.”

Fred Gabourel

“I think we have a very quick team. Size wise we are not that big but we have a very quick team and we are going to try and use the speed.”

But speed is not the only thing that makes a good team.

Englebert Cherrington

“We have to work on getting serious and putting our heads in the game and listening to the coaching staff because we have a good coaching staff. If we listen to the way they want us to play the game we can be successful.”

And everyone at home will be hoping for their success as well. Arreini Palacio for News Five.

The twelve players and their coaching staff leave Belize for Guyana on Wednesday the fourteenth July for competitions beginning on Friday July sixteenth. They return to Belize on the twenty-sixth of July.