Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter
HAVING SNATCHED 1-0 leads on Sunday night, Tivoli All-Stars and Denham Town Wizards will look to close out their series against the Arnett Gardens Rockers and Blazing Panthers in today's crucial KFC/bmobile National Basketball League game two's at the National Stadium Courts.
Tivoli will play Arnett at 6:00p.m., while game two between the Wizards and the Panthers is scheduled for 7:45p.m.
The competition Sunday was fierce between rivals Tivoli Gardens, who finished in the regular season fourth place spot and Arnett Rockers who finished a spot below, but in the end the west Kingston men triumphed 69-66 to gain the early advantage in the best-of-three series.
Jermaine Peart had 21 points for Tivoli, while Mervin Campbell top scored for Arnett with 15 points.
In the night's other game, Denham Town Wizards got the better of Blazing Panthers 95-85. The Wizards were led by Kirk Ferguson's 29 points, and got 24 points and 10 rebounds from Anthony Farquharson. Dushane White had 28 points and 12 rebounds for the Panthers, while Morais Reddie had 24 points and 15 rebounds.
Arnett Gardens, anchored by a solid defensive effort, would force several Tivoli turnovers and eventually tied the game 15-15 by the end of the first quarter.
From a 32-28 half-time deficit, the orange and black clad Tivoli would come out red-hot for the third quarter and on the heel of back to back three pointers from sharp shooter Jermaine Peart, would find themselves even with Arnett Gardens and beginning to pull away.
The fact that the game was so close gives Arnett coach Sheronette Mercurius confidence going into today's encounter.
"The fact that we played so well gives us a lot of confidence going into game two. In any case if we don't win game two our season will be over," she said.
Tivoli's coach Dennis Hutchinson said.
"It's a tremendous concern that we were unable to put them away, we weren't consistent, but that stemmed from too many turnovers," he said. "Everybody wanted to be the catalyst for the team so we ended up forcing the ball a lot, we have to address that."
