Orange Walk versus Cayo in the Elite Basketball Tournament
And on the basketball courts, a second run of competition takes place over the weekend. The National Elite Basketball League is hosting several regular season games with participating teams visiting various towns to take on their respective home teams. The newly opened season, according to NEBL Commissioner, Isaac Rhys is off to a strong start and reception from fans of the sport has been warm. News Five spoke with Rhys today and he gave us a rundown of this weekend’s activities, as well as an update on the progress of the season.
Via phone: Isaac Rhys, Commissioner, NEBL
“This week, today Friday and tomorrow Saturday we will be having two games today, one game in Dangriga which will feature the Dangriga Warriors and the Belmopan Bandits and the next game will be in Corozal; featuring the team that opened Belize City, Smart No Limit versus the Corozal Heats. Tomorrow in Orange Walk we have the Orange Walk Running Rebels versus the Cayo Western Ballaz and that game should be shown live on channel 5 and we have also in PG tomorrow the Toledo diplomat playing against the San Pedro Tigersharks. They also opened in Belize last Friday versus No Limit and they were victorious. Those are the games that are playing this weekend. We’ve been getting very good feedback so far, we had a very good game last week in Corozal which was the Cayo Western Ballaz, they edged out Corozal by two. The fans was what we expected and we expected to gain some traction especially after each time had, had some time to play their own game. Centrally what we are doing is taking the league countrywide by having these teams in these localities and when they all have a chance to play that home game that will spread the word some more and actually give the fans an opportunity to see their home guys play and that is pretty much what will gain traction for us.”
Isani Cayetano
Isaac Rhys
“What has been the reception since the opening of the season?”
Via Phone: Isaac Rhys
“Well the fans seem pretty anxious. We keep getting calls from the district association about preparations for the games. I think there they don’t know exactly what to expect but all indications are that it’s the fan and so far in terms of what the fans are looking forward to. I want to encourage once again everything goes back to the fans, we want to encourage as much as possible everyone in their localities to go out and cheer their team on. That is where the real focus is, in the localities where the home teams are played, the people can come out, they can enjoy their team, they can enjoy good basketball. This can very much encourage the players and the league to continue to make this season a success.”
Saturday night’s game in Orange Walk between the home team and the Cayo Western Ballaz will be carried live on Channel Five.
