The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Temple Christian Suns clearly remember their blowout loss to the St Anne’s Blue Waves last year at Temple Christian.

Monday was payback time.

In the opening of the Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools’ 2017/18 senior boys’ basketball season, the Suns returned the favour by routing the Blue Waves 57-42 at St Anne’s.

Deyton Albury led a balanced scoring attack with a game high 17 points to pace Temple Christian. Christian Sturrup contributed 12 and Miguel Barnes added 11. Garrett Edgecombe and Theo Knowles chipped in with seven and six respectively.

Before leaving the game with an injury in the fourth quarter, Michael Wallace scored a side high 15, while Deryn Johnson had 12. Nicholas Nabbie helped out with five.

“This was a good one. We had some jitters early on, but at the same time we came out and locked into our defensive strategy and our defence led to some points on turnovers and we were able to just go from there and stay in control,” said Suns’ head coach Nigel Smith. Smith said what he likes about his team this year is the fact that they have some of the players who moved up from the junior team that won the championship last year, so they are looking forward to turning things around this year.

“Right now we have a very cohesive group, the chemistry is good and everybody is working together, so we are going to continue keep pushing until we win it all. That’s our goal this year.”

With their enthusiasm from winning the junior title last year, Smith said he’s confident that Temple Christian will have a chance to prove that they can add a senior boys title to their trophy case.

They showed their commitment to going after the title as they broke away from a slim 6-3 lead to extend their margin to 15-3 lead.

But Wallace got a pair of free throws and after he came up with a steal, he drove to the basket and instead staying on the right side, he switched to the left for a one-handed dunk to trim the Bluewaves’ deficit to 15-7.

Temple Christian, however, stayed ahead 16-7 at the end of the first break as Sturrup led the way with six and both Albury and Barnes had four apiece.

In the second quarter, the Suns pushed their lead to ten, 23-13, on a jumper from Albury. But before St Anne’s knew what happened, they trailed 33-17.

Using a full court trap defense, the Suns went on to post a 34-19 margin at the half as Albury finished the period with seven and Barnes had four. Wallace and Johnson had seven and four respectively for the Bluewaves.

The third quarter saw both teams come up with a run of their own.

Temple Christian made the first one as Sturrup highlighted their 42-24 lead on a two-handed slam dunk on a fast break.

But Johnson ended a spurt by the Bluewaves on a lay-up as they trimmed the deficit to 42-30.

By the end of the final break, Temple Christian was up 46-35 as Sturrup and Albury both had four for the Suns and Johnson and Wallace came up with four apiece for the Bluewaves.

Both teams switched their players in and out in the fourth quarter, but Temple Christian had built up an insurmountable lead as St Anne’s couldn’t get inside the ten-point margin.

“This was not what we expected. We came out slow and in the rest of the game, they applied too much pressure on us,” said Bluewaves’ coach Simone Paul. “We also lost one of our ball handlers, so it’s going to be tough.”

Paul was referring to Wallace, who injured his knee into the fourth quarter and didn’t get to finish the game.

“We just have to go back to practice and focus on defense,” Paul stressed. “Offense is not an issue for us. We just have to play better defense.”