Impressive Herbert Morrison send warning to basketball rivals

Herbert Morrison Technical High School (HMTHS) sent a strong warning to their rural zone opponents after dominant wins by both their under-16 and under-19 teams in the opening quarterfinals games in the ISSA Schoolboy Rural Basketball at Herbert Morrison yesterday.

The rural Group 2 team crushed Old Harbour High 69-22 in the U16 encounter, before the U19-unit whipped Garvey Maceo High 84-23 to maintain their perfect record.

According to Daniel Clarke, interim coach of both HMTHS teams, his players executed the game plan well.

“Everything played out well and ran smoothly. The teams played great defence and offence and were able to get the job done in our opening quarterfinal games. It was a great feeling and quite an achievement after telling them what to do and see them actually do it,” said Clarke, who added that the team members jelled together well.

“Preparing for our next two games, we will work on some finishing at the rim and tightening our defensive unit which is a small fix. We will also need to work on our rotation,” added Clarke.

The U19 team’s sizzling performance was led by Joshua Ferguson’s 34 points, two rebounds, three assists, and two steals. Ferguson had a season’s high 10 three pointers, followed by Aaron Rayson with 14 points, three rebounds and Ryan Jurdine’s 10 points, three steals and two assists. Garvey Maceo’s Nicade Bachan scored seven points.

Meanwhile, Seymore Hawthorne, coach of Garvey Maceo, expressed disappointment over the loss noting the team’s lack of execution.

“It was a disappointing loss and I expected a better performance, even though it’s a new sport that we started three years ago. I have seen the boys play much better than this, I don’t know what happened in the game. We never executed what we were supposed to do, even though Herbert Morrison played really well,” said Hawthorne.

“We have to go back to the drawing board and get ready for our next two games. We have to review the footage from the game and hopefully the problem areas,” added Hawthorne.

The game was pretty much decided from the start as Herbert Morrison took a 21-0 first-quarter lead before extending the lead 19-9 at the half. By the end of the third quarter there was no coming back for Garvey Maceo, with Herbert Morrison outscoring them 23-3. The fourth quarter provided more of the same, with the winners outscoring Garvey Maceo 21-11.

In U16 action, Herbert Morrison’s impressive win was led by Antonio Kerr’s 19 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals while his teammate, Trey Turner added 16 points of his own to go along with five rebounds and two steals. Old Harbour’s Troy Phillips put up 10 points and seven rebounds.