Team Belize heads to El Salvador for two friendly games

Our national effort last week in international basketball may be a sad memory but today Team Belize is convinced that the players have gotten their act together and should redeem themselves in games three and four against Mexico. Today our homeboys packed their bags, took a bus ride to the Phillip Goldson International Airport and headed south to El Salvador for two friendly games with that country’s national selection. We caught up with the guys at the Belize City Centre this afternoon and found them begging for a whole lot of patriotic support.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
?Darwin tell us how you?re feeling we know you left game two with an injured ankle.?

Darwin Carter, Captain, Team Belize
?I?m feeling pretty good, right now. Right now, my ankle is still kinda soar, but for most of the part I?m gonna support my team.?

Janelle Chanona
?Talk to us about how you are helping to motivate the team with the next two games with Mexico, after such blistering loses.?

Darwin Carter
?We have a young set of guys, and they can only learn. We have to go through games like that to become better so that was a good test for us, and I?m pretty sure the guys learnt a lot from it.?

Janelle Chanona
?What does the team hope to learn from the El Salvador friendly??

Darwin Carter
?Well El Salvador is pretty big and they?re not as good as Mexico obviously, but the guys just being with the size and everything they should be able to match-up a little bit better.?

Janelle Chanona
?Tell the fans what they should be doing right now for Team Belize??

Darwin Carter
?Just keep the support. We didn?t do too good against Mexico, and obviously Mexico is the most dominant team in our region, but everyone in Belize just have to keep the support and keep the faith. This is our country, this is our team, and for us to look good as Belize, we all have to support each other.?

Richard Troyer, Team Belize
?I think it?s just play hard, and try to improve our team chemistry. I think that was our main issue last time. We didn?t really play together. I think the main thing we are looking at is trying to get better. Everybody trying to play as a team, and play together better.?

Janelle Chanona
?Any message to the fans?

Richard Troyer
?Don?t give up on us, I guess. We don?t mean to disappoint but we are just doing our best and that?s what we will continue to do. We ask for their support.?

Janelle Chanona
?What was the mistake you think we made in the last two games??

Stephen Williams, Team Belize
?Defence was the major problem. Mexico was bigger, so it outplayed us a lot.”

Janelle Chanona
?Any new strategy? Can you give us an insider look at what the new strategy will be next week with Mexico??

Stephen Williams
?Well probably a much faster game, because they are more slower than us. We are looking forward to the challenge.?

Janelle Chanona
?Message to fans?

Stephen Williams
?Just keep behind us. We will make you guys proud.?

Brads Neal, Belize Basketball Federation
?The roster that we have that we played with Mexican team last week, is going to be the same roster we must use for these games, but when we go and play against Costa Rica we can make some alteration to roster. We can go back to the twenty-four man roster and plug in guys from there.?

Janelle Chanona
?Now what has Team Belize learnt from the first two games and how do you capitalize and do better in game three and four??

Brads Neal
?The first thing that we?ve learnt is that we cannot play one quarter bad. When we look at the games we realize that we had one quarter that was just terrible. And it is important for us to be consistent throughout the course of the game. I think in the first game we had an excellent start, and then we just cooled down our second quarter which was horrendous for us. Then in the second game we had a terrible start then we played the rest of the quarters them together. It?s very important for us to be consistent. For you to win a basketball game you have to play quarter by quarter and you have to perform well.?

The Belize El Salvador games are scheduled to take place at the Indes stadium in San Salvador on Friday and Saturday nights. Both match-ups are set to start at eight. Team Belize will return on Sunday before heading off to Chetumal on Monday for game three against Mexico on Tuesday night.