Soufrière Dominate Schools Basketball Opener

Soufrière Comprehensive Secondary School (SCSS) earned a clinical win over Castries Comprehensive Secondary School (CCSS) on Tuesday at the Beausejour Gymnasium, as the 2024-25 Under-19 Schools Basketball Tournament got underway. Two-time losing finalists, the lads from Sulphur City are hopeful that the third time will be the charm. 

SCSS won 60-19, behind 21 points, seven assists, and five steals from Nathaniel Modeste. Curdin Jones had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, six of them on the offensive glass. Micah Alphonse also tallied 14 points, adding four steals and five rebounds. Shayne Edgar only had three points, but he contributed nine rebounds, seven steals, and six assists. 

CCSS had a remarkable 39 turnovers and missed 43 field goal attempts. 

Soufrière coach Marc Antoine said he was pleased with the outing, and delighted that the competition is back after being postponed from the first semester. He noted, however, that his charges have stayed ready, as they are going all in for the win. 

“My players did play as expected. They’ve been doing some work during the vacation, I did some work with them in the vacation. We have a few guys who’ve been there for about three years, so they actually know the basics of the game, and as you can see, it manifested itself in the game.

“The guys are quite happy, I’m happy for them, thrilled for them, because they’ve been training from September, cause we thought the tournament would have been first term as usual. So they’ve been training. They’ve been doing work on their own, also with the Soufrière basketball team. So they’ve been practising, and I’m very pleased to see that the tournament has started.

“As usual, we want to go all the way, so that’s basically it. Get to the finals, and hopefully, we can win it this year. We’ve been there two years in a row, where we’ve lost to Leon Hess. Hopefully, we can take that one step further and bring the title home,” Antoine added.

The SCSS-CCSS game was the first part of a tripleheader. St Mary’s College defeated Corinth Secondary 42-27, whilst Entrepot Secondary came from behind to edge defending champions Leon Hess Comprehensive 32-28.

The opening tip-off was delayed for about 90 minutes, due to issues with the stanchions.