Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter
St. Catherine's Javan Bailey (right) tries to swat the ball away from Wolmers's Fabian Thompson in the KFC-sponsored ISSA Southern Conference final at Mico College on Thursaday. St. Catherine won the game 59-47 to take a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-three finals. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
IT'S CRUNCH time for Wolmer's Boys as they look to keep their KFC/ISSA High School basketball season alive when they face off against last year's national championship runners-up St. Catherine in a do-or-die elimination game at St. Catherine High come 3:30 p.m. today.
Having gone into the finals with a 10-0 record Wolmer's, last year's Southern Conference runners-up, not only saw their streak snapped when they faced St. Catherine last week, but had their home court advantage snatched away from them, when they were beaten 59-47 by a team that showed superior tactical execution.
In order to not have their season slip away on back to back losses, they must find a way to get the better of a St. Catherine team oozing with confidence, not only coming off back to back wins, but 4-0 at home so far this season. Despite the difficulty of this task, Wolmer's coach Howard Harvey says it will be business as usual.
CAN'T LOOSE
"Emotionally we are prepared, we are not emotionally shattered or anything, we just know that we cannot afford to lose today because if we do there will be no game three," he said.
"I don't think that we have played particularly well at home this season but we won't make any excuses, we will just be going out to play good basketball," he added.
St. Catherine have been red-hot after losing to both Wolmer's and Excelsior in the second round. They recovered to knock out unbeaten St. Jago in the semi-finals, before going 1-0 up in the final, best-of-three series.
With the odds in their favour St. Catherine coach Lennox Lindo is confident, but believes that it is important to close out the series today.
"Things are calm in the camp right now but we definitely do not want Wolmer's to get back any confidence that they could use to their advantage heading into game three," he said.
"We are at home and that is a big advantage. We are used to our court and I think that there is about an 80 per cent chance that we will close out the series today," he added.
