Busy Paul van Beek, the smallest player on the court, approaches the Jersey board.
Guernsey 67, Jersey 65
‘NEVER in doubt’ Jeff Stuart proclaimed.
Pull the other one, mate.
Guernsey, the hot favourites, very nearly threw away the golden prize on a thrilling basketball inter-insular afternoon at Beau Sejour.
Cruising it at half-time, Stuart’s star-studded side came within one three-pointer of losing a match they had looked like storming.
And if Dave Middleton, the Jersey No. 13, had popped in the long-range attempt with just 30sec., left on the clock, it’s a fair bet the Greens might not have overturned the deficit.
It made for terrific action but, for the home contingent, increasingly worrying moments.
But Stuart, a player-coach renowned for maximising his bench and embracing the team ethic, was rather blasé about the closeness of it all beyond the final hooter.
‘Maybe four or five years ago we’d have choked, but not today.’
Then, with perhaps a more honest assessment of his side’s third and fourth quarter struggles, he added: ‘we were struggling mentally and in inter-insulars it’s always going to be a tough war’.
Ninety minutes earlier Guernsey’s domination was such that Jersey, with their collection of Poles and Aussie Jon Gilmore, might have been excused for raising the white flag.
Guernsey’s early bombardment of the Jersey basket suggested an early surrender. MVP Shek Sesay took four seconds to open the scoring and big Mike Beausire quickly added another two.
By the first Jersey time-out three-and-a-half minutes in, Guernsey were 8-2 up and by the end of the first quarter it was 20-9.
And when, soon after, Guernsey’s total doubled Jersey’s, the totally biased home announcer was quick to rub it in and tell everyone in a crowd, which must have been in the region of 200-plus.
But Jersey, coaxed by their big Polish player-coach Bob Gouzinis, clawed their way back.
From nine down at the break their deficit was just six, 50-44, at the end of the third quarter.
The final 15 minutes was only a couple of minutes old and the difference was down to two. Paul van Beek’s three-pointer eased some of the home nerves and the margin swelled to seven with just three minutes left.
A Caesarean three-pointer revived their hopes and when Middleton popped in two sets of free throws with 50 and 35sec. left the deficit was two.
Jersey’s next attack saw Middleton eye up potential match-winning points, but the effort was not even close and, to Guernsey’s relief, they held on despite Jan Renouf missing two nervous free throws in the dying seconds.
Great entertainment.
In the two other games, Guernsey under-21s triumphed by 54, while the Jersey under-17s edged home by five.
Jason Hooper was MVP in the under-21s’ 102 to 48 destruction of the visitors, but despite
Elliott Weeks’ 19 points, the Adam Farish-coached under-17s side lost out to a Chris Radzimski inspired Reds.
Full reports to follow.Inter-insulars ’09: Stuart’s men and home crowd endure nervous climax to senior game
Article posted on 30th March, 2009 - 2.29pm
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