‘The kids needed this scrimmage’

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WITHOUT any formal competition for his Freedom Baptist Academy teams to compete in, coach Josiah Major was delighted to take advantage of the scrimmage against the Diamond Basketball Development Programme.

On Saturday, Major and his teams combined to play against the Diamond Basketball Development Programme team at the Hope Center basketball court. While the final score didn’t matter, it was all about playing the game again.

“The kids needed this scrimmage. The girls haven’t played in over a year. They were begging me to allow them to play ball,” he said.

“A lot of leagues shut down because of the coronavirus. But outdoor basketball is making a comeback. We just have to social distance and sanitise before we come on the court and we could go from there. But it’s a good experience. We got a lot of basketball reps in and the kids are improving.”

About a month ago, Major said his boys’ team managed to play in a series of games at the Hope Center organised by the Bahamas Scholastic Schools Sports Association, but the girls didn’t play.

Jaden Jacques, one of the players from Freedom Baptist, said it was great to join his team-mates in the scrimmage. “It felt good,” said the 13-year-old eighth grader. “I think it was good for us to get together. We can’t play in our league, but any time we can do something like this, we are ready.”

Terrance ‘Red Eye’ McSweeney, who has organised his programme to accommodate the girls on Saturdays during the ease of restrictions imposed by COVID-19, thanked God for allowing them to hold their third opportunity to feature the scrimmage games.

A few weeks ago, he said they scrimmaged against CV Bethel, coached by Chantell Rolle and they hope to stage a rematch this Saturday to see how much the players have learned from the first showdown.

“We have girls from HO Nash, Temple Christian, St John’s, TA Thompson and Jordan Prince Williams, so this is just another opportunity to teach the fundamentals of basketball so that when they go back into their various schools, they can continue to develop their game.

“The game of basketball has so many entities, so many facets, so you have to teach the girls differently. So I try to be more proactive in how they move to the basket and score. Sometimes they remember things and sometimes they don’t.”

Through the scrimmages, McSweeney said the girls will hopefully gain the exposure they would want and get some experience, and finally some game play from offence to defence.

Raven Jones said this will definitely help to prepare her for her senior year with the St John’s Giants basketball team when the Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools (BAISS) resumes its competition.

“I feel I have made some big improvement in my game and my confidence level,” Jones said.

“We have a great team out here. I just can’t wait to get our team back together in school. This will really help me when I play with them.”