The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Kingsway Academy Lady Saints marched past the Queen’s College Lady Comets as they took game one of the Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools’ junior girls best-of-three championship series.

On Monday at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium, the defending champions routed the Lady Comets 42-16 to take control of the series that is scheduled to continue 4pm Wednesday. With a sweep, the Lady Saints could duplicate last year’s perfect season.

A modest coach Anthony ‘Papa’ Pinder, who is reunited with his former New Providence Basketball Association coach Randy Cunningham, said they expected the performance, but he anticipates that they will only get better for game two.

“They went out there and did what they had to do,” he said.

“I was very pleased with the effort because I know what they are capable of doing. We’re going to come back and do basically the same thing that we did today.”

Tanae Bowleg and Alana Pinder led a 1-2 punch for Kingsway Academy, scoring 15 and 12 points respectively. Valencia Demeritte had seven and Abbecanna Brennen chipped in with eight.

For Queen’s College, Ramona Hanna scored five and both Tyler Lightbourne and Lorrain Russell had four, while Aisya Strachan chipped in with three in a losing effort.

Kingsway Academy opened a comfortable 14-2 lead in the first quarter and they held on for a 14-5 margin at the break.

In the second quarter, Alana Pinder broke a scoring drought by canning two consecutive baskets to push the Lady Saints ahead 18-5. By the half, the Saints were ahead 24-6.

Despite trailing, the Lady Comets got a baseline jumper over two defenders from Lorrain Russell as they cut the lead to 27-8.

That seemed to motivate the team as they came back to start the fourth with Ramona Hanna canning two straight three-pointers to push Queen’s College in double digits for a 38-11 deficit.

And Aisya Strachan, the shortest player on the court, canned a three-pointer as the Lady Comets only trailed 38-14.

However, the Lady Saints answered with Tanae Bowleg hitting a three-pointer for a 40-15 margin and they never looked back.

“We will have to regroup for the next game. We did our best in this one, but once we go over our mistakes, we will be back,” said Queen’s College coach Rev Chadwick James.

“Kingsway has a strong team. They had a strong team from last year. Most of their players returned, so we knew that they were going to be very strong. We just have to learn to play much better.”