On one hand, there seems to be no stopping the Lumber Company Lakers.
On the other, the Station Hill Cavaliers can’t seem to stop losing.
The Lakers’ season continued its fairy tale run as they notched their sixth straight victory Thursday night, courtesy of a 78-70 defeat of Warrens Sports Club, while the Cavaliers’ nightmarish start dragged on as they were toppled by Pinelands 75-64 when action in the Barbados Amateur Basketball Association’s Premier League continued at the YMCA.
In a rematch of last year’s final, Lakers garnered some measure of revenge by handing the defending champions their sixth loss in seven games, while improving their record to a perfect 6-0.
With limited production from the usually reliable Adrian Allman and Keefe Birkett, who combined for just seven points, and the absence of star player Andre Lockhart, the Lakers were led to victory by swingman Ian Alexander, who scored 19 points, and Mark Bridgeman, who added 13.
Warriors were missing Pearson Griffith, Zahir Motara and Kevin Austin, but because of the efforts of Manuel Alleng, George Farrell and Akeem Williams, they made it an exciting game in the opening quarters.
They only trailed by two (18-20) after the first period and by three at the halfway mark (30-33).
But it fell apart in the third quarter, when Warrens allowed their opponents to score 28 points while only scoring 13 as the lead ballooned to 21 heading into the final period (46-67).
Alleng led with 16 points, Farrell had 14 and Williams 13 in a losing cause for Warrens.
In the night’s second game, both Jeremy Gill and Charles Vanderpool narrowly missed triple doubles as Pinelands notched their second win in a row to climb into fourth position (4-3).
Gill was unstoppable on his was to scoring a team-high 20 points, while dishing out nine assists and pulling down eight boards.
Vanderpool scored 11 points, grabbed ten rebounds and had eight blocks in a dominant defensive showing from the national player.
Pinelands used a stellar defensive effort in the third quarter, limiting the Cavaliers to just nine points while rattling off 21 points to help transform a four-point half-time lead (33-29) into a 16-point rout heading into the final period (54-38).
Even with a season-high scoring performance from Jason Smith, the Cavaliers still stuttered to their fifth loss of the season (2-5) with only Warrens (1-6) and Tridents (0-7) boasting worse records.
Smith finished with 19 points and Kelvin Patterson added 15 to be the lone players to score in double digits
in a woeful offensive showing from the former league champs. The duo kept their side into the contest until the third quarter when Pinelands effectively put the game to bed. (RB)
