By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

THE remaining four teams in the 2025 Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools (BAISS) sudden death playoffs secured a finals berth yesterday at the Kendal GL Isaacs (KGLI) Gymnasium.

The St John’s College (SJC) Giants now have four teams in the finals after their junior girls, junior boys and senior boys joined the senior girls in advancing to the championship round.

The first seeded Giants junior girls pummelled the fourth seeded Queen’s College (QC) Comets 39-6 in their sudden death matchup.

In the following game, the fourth seeded Giants dealt the first seeded St Augustine’s College (SAC) Big Red Machine a sudden death 36-28 in the junior boys’ game.

The top seed Kingsway Academy (KWA) Saints cruised to a comfortable 53-9 victory against the fourth seeded Jordan Prince WIlliam Falcons to return to the senior girls’ championship.

In the final matchup of the night, the first seeded Giants eliminated the defending champions Charles W Saunders Cougars 65-40 in the senior boys’ showdown. 

Junior Girls 

It was a tough night for the QC Comets with the lid covering the basket for the first three quarters of the game.

The Giants blitzed the Comets defence for a 14-0 advantage to start the game in the first period of play.

While QC struggled to put the ball in the hole, the Giants kept the offensive barrage going to sit comfortably ahead 25-0 at the intermission.

SJC stormed into the second half feeling confident and once again held the Comets’ junior girls to a scoreless quarter.

The scoring drought did not end until Aryanna Hernandez drained a jumper at the 4:08 mark of the fourth quarter to get QC on the scoreboard but it was too little, too late.

The Giants outscored QC 14-6 in the second half to move on to the finals.

Azariah Duncombe led all scorers with 10 points in the victory for SJC.

Hernandez pitched in a team-high four points for QC in the blowout loss.

The Giants are now set to take on the Charles W Saunders Cougars in the junior girls’ finals.

Junior Boys

Despite some adversity in the regular season, the SJC Giants junior boys will be returning to the BAISS championship for a chance at repeating as champions.

The Big Red Machine fought hard against the Giants but the latter simply wanted it more down the stretch.

Head coach Dastyn Baker was emotional as he spoke about the team’s gritty win.

“It is just a testament of hard work and effort. My guys just locked in and they wanted to win, and they pulled it off,” he said.

It was still anybody’s game through three quarters in the junior boys’ matchup. 

SAC’s Christian McKinney called bank on a three for a 19-17 lead with under a minute to go, but SJC’s Kayden Deveaux responded with another on the other end.

The Giants were ahead 21-19 going into the final period. 

Baker shared his message to the team during the final stretch.

“I told them that big time players make big time plays and they just gutted it out. They made the big time plays and made the right plays for us to be successful and win the game,” he said.

While the long-range buckets were not falling for SAC, the Giants found a way to make their shots count. 

The Giants responded in critical moments down the stretch. The team held the lead 24-23 after SAC scored a two-pointer off an inbounds possession. 

SJC’s Deandre Baker answered back with a three from the left wing to go up 27-23.

SAC started to build some last minute momentum in the fourth quarter but SJC’s Addison Bethel converted on a reverse layup to close out the game for the Giants.

Baker pitched in 11 points for the Giants.

The victors will now match up against the JPW Falcons in the junior boys’ best-of-three championship series.

Senior Girls

The senior girls contest between the Saints and Falcons showed similar patterns of the junior girls’ ball game earlier in the evening.

The Saints grounded the Falcons from the opening tip. The team emerged with an early 7-0 lead in the first quarter and kept their feet on the gas the rest of the way.

Head coach Tamaro Butler was happy for the team’s return to the finals.

“We have been here before and we were here last year. We didn’t win so we came back and are gonna try to finish off the job this year. 

“We played good defence, executed and did what we were supposed to do,” he said.

The Saints ran ahead by as much as 24 (24-0) in the second quarter before the Falcons broke the dry spell with a single make at the charity stripe.

The halftime score was 31-5.

The Saints did not play around in the second half, outscoring the Falcons 22-4 en route to another finals appearance.

National team player Andica Curtis turned in a game-high 25 points for the Saints.

Coach Butler wants the team to clean up on the missed point blank opportunities and to take care of the ball in the next round. 

The team will look to avenge last year’s finals loss this time around against the SJC Giants.

Senior boys

The first seeded Giants did not give the defending champions any chance at repeating as the senior boys’ title holders.

After closing the first quarter with a narrow 11-7 lead, the Giants started to widen the gap against the Cougars.

The team went up 21-8 at the 4:33 mark but the Cougars managed to close in 23-16 late in the second period.

The Giants responded to the Cougars’ run with 15 straight points to extend the deficit to 38-16 at the halftime break.

The second half was no different. The Giants were in the driver’s seat 50-22 with 3:13 left to go in the third.

The team never looked back in the contest.

SJC’s Leonardo Rolle finished the game with 24 points. He scored 10 of those in the second quarter.

The 2025 BAISS best-of-three championship series begins 4pm Monday in the KGLI Gym.