This Is Guernsey

By Aaron Scoones

Le Mont Saint Fiat 76, Le Mont Saint Subaru 78

YOU will be hard pushed to find a better game of basketball this season than when the two Le Mont Saint teams met at Beau Sejour on Friday night. The two teams were formed when last year’s champions, Le Mont Saint, split in half in a bid to make Division One more competitive.

And according to Subaru’s player/coach Pete Beausire, who is also the new GBBA president, their tight victory over Fiat justifies that move.

‘It was good to have a close game. It shows we were right in splitting the teams,’ he said.

‘It’s made it a more competitive league which we tried to do. From a president’s point of view it was great to see that Collins Stewart had a close game the other day and another close game tonight shows that all four teams are on a level par.

‘But we weren’t expecting it to be that close tonight as we were missing our three point guards. So we were big man strong.’

That was something of an understatement as it was hard to see from the off who was going to carry the ball up the court for them.

With the team consisting only of his brother Mike, Mark Barnett, Jan Renouf, Phil Sweet and Dan Harradine, all big men and wearing the white of Subaru, it was left to Beausire to play guard.

This was exposed right at the start as Subaru packed the key with their big men and Fiat’s captain James Tracey gunned a three-pointer to lodge the first points of the match.

Fiat went on a little run but their opponents responded positively to keep in touch.

They too played to their strengths which was to use their size and drive straight to the basket.

By the end of scintillating first quarter, Subaru were up 25-19.

The whites built on this lead in the second as Barnett and Renouf combined well to find the basket with a number of backdoor moves.

At one point they were leading 37-24, but by half-time this advantage had been reduced to 43-37 as Fiat started to land their shots.

After half-time their rhythm got even better as the third quarter became the Nick Leale show. The guard gave his side nine points during this passage as he consistently landed his jump shot.

With Fiat breathing down their opponents’ necks, Subaru started to get rattled.

Mike Beausire in particular was lucky not to get a technical when he threw the ball away after a call which did not go his way.

Fiat eventually went ahead to end the quarter 63-58 in front, having scored 26 points to Subaru’s 15.

But the whites came out for the fourth more composed, as Barnett was content to slow down the play.

With another strong lay-up, he got the points to put his team in front again at 64-63.

However this lead was to change a number of times until it was all level at 74 all with less than a minute left on the clock.

Barnett with yet another lay up made it 76-74 as Fiat had a chance to make something happen with 20 seconds left.

But those were dashed when referee Barry Robilliard called Richard Davey for barraging Renouf much to the chagrin of the Fiat forward.

Renouf held his nerve from the free-throw line and made both his shots to make it 78-74.

Back down the court, Tracey got two and when Pete Beausire missed both his free throws when the foul came in from Fiat their hopes rose.

But a loose pass to Leale that was intercepted by Mike Beausire sealed the match for Subaru.

Barnett and Tracey were joint top scorers with 26 points each, but this was scant consolation for Tracey as his team have yet to win after their first three matches.

‘It was a really enjoyable game but we just found it difficult to stick to what was working for us and maybe if we had another 30 seconds we could have done it,’ said the New Zealander.

‘It will be a tough season but we knew that at the outset.’