Kwesi Mugisa, Staff ReporterDEMEATRIO WADE poured in 34 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as Excelsior flogged Ardenne 62-41, improving to a 3-1 record as action in the KFC-sponsored ISSA High School Basketball competition Southern Conference continued yesterday at Excelsior High School.
In Ardenne's defence the game had been close most of the way as a fast-paced first quarter had only seen Excelsior manage a 16-15 lead.
There was solid play by both Ardenne's Andre Khan, who joint top scored for his team with 13 points, seven of which came in the first quarter, and Matthew Fletcher who had the same number of points. But an eight-point second quarter ensured that at half-time the teams were almost dead-even with Excelsior narrowly leading 30-28.
THIRD QUARTER DOMINANCE
In the third quarter Wade took over and he did most of his scoring by driving to the hoop and from the free throw line. In fact, he scored five of his 10 points for that quarter with 10 seconds left, pushing the Excelsior lead to 51-40 at the end of the third.
"Basically we began to close out and it got easy, we decided to push up on them and deny them the ball, we did not do this well enough in the first half," commented Rohan Robinson, Excelsior's coach.
He added: "The game changed dramatically and we began to get fast breaks and got a lot more trips to the free throw line."
With the lead already out of control Ardenne succumbed to the pressure in the fourth quarter and were outscored 11-1. Ardenne coach Basil Barrett believes not being fit may have played a part in his young team's loss.
"One of the biggest problems we had out there was fitness. We have to start doing some serious work on our fitness if we want to make it to the next round," he remarked.
