- JUNIOR DOWIE/Staff Photographer
Kingston College's Owen Hill and St. George's College's Christopher Knibbs battle for a rebound in the ISSA/KFC High Schools' basketball competition yesterday at St. George's. The home team won 58-41.
LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter
ST. GEORGE'S Michael Rogers scored 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds in his team's 58-41 home win over Kingston College yesterday in the ISSA/KFC Under-19 High Schools' basketball competition.
St. George's senior team maintained their 100 per cent record going to 4-0. The junior team suffered a narrow 36-32 loss to KC earlier for their first loss and are now 4-1.
Both St. George's teams have already qualified for the second round and play their final first-round match against Wolmer's today.
While KC's senior team has been struggling (1-3), the junior team is 3-1 and is sure to advance to the second round. The seniors are now relying on an unlikely scenario in which Tarrant must beat Excelsior and Wolmer's to qualify as one of the best third-place finishers.
St. George's seniors stole the game from tip-off when they took an 11-0 lead in the first five minutes and went on to finish the first quarter 21-5. Their unrelenting press defence did not make things easier for their North Street rivals either.
Shane Cunningham top scored for KC with 12 points and Owen Hill had nine. Hill, KC's leading scorer for the season, had a tough day finding the bottom of the basket. His frustrations were intensified when Rogers dunked over him and Horace Wilson in the third quarter.
GAVE UP TOO EARLY
"We gave up too early," commented KC's coach, Sheldon Shepherd. KC came closest to St. George's by 11 points (33-22) but St. George's pulled away, even with their second unit on the floor.
Rogers, who recently won a high school basketball scholarship to Redemption Christian Academy in the U.S. and is expected to take it up in January, showed his class in his team's win. His all-round play was the engine behind the St. George's train.
"We're going to miss him when he leaves but we have to work with what we have when he's gone," said St. George's coach, Clifford Brown.
Brown added he has been concentrating on preparing the team for the second round.
"We're working on strength training and conditioning in preparation for the second round. We're not trying to peak just yet," Brown said.
