The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

The St Augustine’s College Big Red Machine held off the Kingsway Academy Saints in a hard fought 75-61 decision on Tuesday as the Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools resumed its 2012/13 regular season after taking a break for the Christmas holiday.

In what was a match-up of two teams at the two ends of the spectrum, the Big Red Machine rolled out to their fourth consecutive victory to remain on top of the senior boys’ division, while the Saints stayed winless at 0-5 at the bottom of the pile.

With the departure of two of their starters to high schools in the United States, SAC’s power fire came from point guard Kwasi Dames with a game high 22 points, shooting guard Xavier Coakley with 16 and small forward Davon ‘JJ’ Adderley Jr with 15. Donavon Pickering helped out with eight and Rashad Sturrup contributed six.

For Kingsway Academy, Jeron Johnson had a side high 21 points. No other player was in double figures as Charlberto Darling had nine and Denzil Whylly eight.

After getting off to a slow start, leading just 15-12 at the end of the first quarter, thanks to eight points from Adderley Jr, St Augustine’s College turned up the heat in the second quarter as Dames exploded for 14 points as they extended their margin to 37-23 at the half.

However, in the second half as the game got a little more physical, the combo of Johnson and Darling helped the Saints as they marched back into the game, much to the delight of their home crowd. Using a 19-17 spurt, Kingsway Academy trailed 54-42 at the end of the period.

As they continued their momentum in the fourth, the Saints came within nine, 67-59, as Darling connected on two straight baskets.

But that was short-lived as the Big Red Machine managed to finish off the game on an 8-2 scoring spree to keep their winning streak intact.

“The guys just were impatient,” was how SAC’s coach Jason Edwards summed up their performance. “We were running up and down with these guys and we didn’t trust in ourselves.”

Edwards noted that the departure of Anthony Pratt and Nathan Bethel two weeks before the start of the season in November has left a huge void on their inside game. But he’s confident that the Big Red Machine can still go on and win the BAISS title with the team that they have left.

“We’ll be alright. This is SAC. We will play hard. We will be alright,” he said. “We just have to play ball. This isn’t no time to make any excuses. We have been playing with who we have and we have been doing a good job with them. We just didn’t play SAC ball today.”

Andrew Bobb said after taking over from Randy Cunningham as the new head coach at Kingsway Academy, he’s been trying to get his players to make the necessary adjustment to the team they’re playing.

“We knew they were a big team compared to us, size wise. So the plan was to play them in a quicker game,” Bobb said. “We wanted to try to get them unsettled and then we could fall back into a zone. The plan worked at the beginning of the game in the first quarter.

“But then the guys started to slack off and our half court defense was not working properly, so we moved back up to the half court trap. But that wasn’t working either because their point guard (Kwasi Dames) did a really good job of breaking down our defense and that put a lot of pressure on my guys.”

Despite the loss, Bobb said he was still pleased with the effort of his Saints because it’s still a “working progress. We practice a lot of things and obviously the game is to win. But if things don’t work the way we want it to, we have to be able to make the necessary adjustments.”