Jamaica College (JC) and Ardenne High will be looking to close out the finals series of the Inter-Secondary Schools Association (ISSA)/KFC basketball competition, in game-two action this afternoon at the Stadium Courts.
Both schools registered con-trasting game-one victories in the Under-16 and Under-19 best-of-three finals at the National Stadium Courts on Friday.
In the junior finals, JC, led by a game-high 28 points, plus 13 rebound and eight steals from Deano Hibberts, defeated defending champions Ardenne 64-60.
Ardenne, however, rebounded strongly to whip Calabar 71-48 in the senior division.
The junior final will tip off at 2 p.m., followed by the senior encounter at 4 p.m.
Basil Barrett, coach of Ardenne was delighted with his team's comprehensive game-one effort and said they would be looking to wrap up the series.
Playing as a team
"I am pleased with our performance because they played according to our instructions," said Barrett. "Whenever we play as a team, we always play well and we are trying our best to let them play as team," he said.
"We will be coming out to wrap it up on Monday (today) because we know that we can't allow this to get to a game-three situation," said Barrett.
Ludlow Barker, the coach of Calabar, said, "We just beat the toughest team on Wednesday (St George's College) and our players didn't get enough rest and we just didn't recover from it.
"However, we know that we can get back and we are definitely going to do it on Monday," added Barker.
In the senior final, Ardenne dominated the first half as they took a 10-point lead (33-23) at half-time.
They came out firing in the third quarter and went on 10-0 run to increased their lead 43-23, with less than five minutes remaining in the period.
However, Calabar rallied in the final minutes of the quarter through their point guard, Kavian Carty, who sank nine of his high game-high 17 points to cut deficit to 11, as they trailed 52-41 at the end of the period.
Ardenne stepped up their defence in the fourth quarter and this resulted in the number of turnovers by their opponents.
At the offensive end, Ardenne managed to extend their advantage through leading scorers Daniel Thomas and Luke Cook, who both ended the match with 17 points each, as they cruised to an easy win.
The Kurt Stewart-coached JC dominated the junior match from the opening whistle and led 27-21 at half-time.
However, Ardenne rallied in the third quarter as they reduced the deficit by two to trail 44-40 at the end of the period.
JC maintained their advantage throughout the fourth quarter though as Hibberts, with solid support from Sekou Brown, who sank 11 points and pulled down nine rebounds, played strong and enabled their team to hold on to victory.
Stephen Silvera (17 points) and Warren Battick (14 points and eight rebounds), were the leading contributors for the losers.