Belize drops second game to Mexico

Reporting bad news is never fun … but for the second night in a row I’m forced to be the bearer of bad tidings from the Belize City Centre. That’s right: another defeat at the hands of Mexico.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Empty bleachers at the starting buzzer may have been a sign that Belizean basketball fans knew what was coming. After suffering a blistering defeat on Tuesday night, the homeboys had their work cut out. Further up the sidelines, the Mexicans were feeling good.

Trying to learn from its mistakes, Team Belize makes a change in the starting five, putting the previous night?s golden boys Leboise Gladden and Kirk Smith in for Richard Troyer and Englebert Cherrington.

Belize?s first shot at the scoreboard would come off a Mexican foul on Kenton Paulino, but he only gets one from the charity stripe. New strategy is a man to man defence but Belize can?t seem to hit where it hurts.

And Mexico just keeps on coming. Top scorers for Mexico were Enrique Zuniga and Victor Mariscal who would both finish with seventeen points apiece, but Horacio Llamas, Jorge Richon, and Miguel Ayala would all rack up more than ten points each.

Despite a couple hot spots, by the end of the first quarter Belize found itself on the wrong end of a twenty point lead.

And that would be the sad story. Darwin Carter left the game with an injured ankle and even though Belize intensified it?s inside game, Mexico fine-tuned its outside shots, hitting threes like they going out a style. The foreigners would maintain their double digit lead until the bitter end.

Salt to the wound was the fact that Belize took the brunt of foul calls. Englebert Cherrington actually fouled out, Kirk Smith, Ian Augustine and Keith Acosta would all finish with four fouls. The most any Mexican got was three.

The rest of the game was a blur of Mexican baskets and Belizean mistakes. The long whistle was actually a relief, final score: Belize 72, Mexico 91.

Kenton Paulino, Team Belize
?I was glad to play for my country, I was happy to come over home, but it?s frustrating that we weren?t able to win on our home court.?

Keith Swift, News 5/7 Reporter
?Will we see you playing in Mexico??

Kenton Paulino, Team Belize
?Yeah, I?m going over to Mexico to play basketball, so yeah from here on out you?ll see me playing for the team.?

Brads Neal, Belize Basketball Federation
?It?s going to be tough for us to go into Mexico in a couple of weeks and to win two games out there to even the score. To make things worse, they beat us by seventeen points last night, and twenty-one points tonight, that?s a difficult task.?

Angel Gonzalez, Assistant Coach, Team Mexico
?The key for our success tonight was our inside game and our defence in general. I think the overalls are points that Belize scored on us is exactly where we want our opponents. Those two an average of eighteen or seventeen points a quarter, I think that?s a good defensive job.?

Keith Swift
?What is in stored for us when we go to Mexico??

Angel Gonzalez
?Our conditioning is not up to par, so we will continue to work on our conditioning. We should do a better job in Mexico, but that?s going to be the key and continue to work together as a team.?

And therein just might be Belize?s Achilles heel. Players with impressive individual talent, but a team without unity.

The away games for the Belize Mexico match-up are scheduled for May sixteenth in Chetumal and May seventeenth in Playa del Carmen.