2016 will be a year to remember for Brent Ballers who celebrated their first CBL U14 Championship last weekend after they triumphed over the Enfield Scorpions 45-39 on Sunday 26th June.
The CBL caught up with the Brent Ballers’ Coach, Eddy Lartey, who said:
We entered our final game of the season a little nervous, missing our lay ups but grabbing our own rebounds and making the put backs. On defence, we started off strong by getting a steal, however, when we made our basket, the transition defence was lacking on help which allowed Enfield to score.
We quickly learnt that we needed to take our time as silly mistakes could have costed us losing the lead by the end of the first quarter (9-7). Our point guard, Fabio Mills, and big man, Daniel Amah, both did well to handle the game, attacking the basket aggressively to each finish with 6 points to lead 19-17 going into the half.
The third period taught us that we needed to take care of the ball as we had a few turnovers in a short period due to bad passes. However, we soon returned to playing our strong defence by gaining steals which gave us a 5 point cushion (31-26) before the start of the final period.
Enfield Scorpions made a huge come back towards the end of the game, with Dane Foster netting 6 points before hitting a much needed three, making it a 2 point game (41-39) with only minutes left of play.
However, our MVP, Daniel Amah, continued to dominate in the post, grabbing an impressive 13 rebounds overall whilst team mate, Sheyi Agbaje, also collected 12 rebounds of his own to prevent Scorpions stinging us before the game ended.
The final moments of the game saw a lot of fouls, and it was frustrating to see our PG, Fabio Mills, foul out in the 4th, whilst Daniel Amah and Chris Allen each had 4 fouls by the end of the game.
With Mills out, Fabio Resende and Sheyi Agbaje took control of the game, bringing the energy that Brent needed to secure the game and seal the win.
MVP, Daniel Amah, said, “I’m really proud of my team and it’s a great achievement to take home the U14 Championship title. That game was a little messy for our liking, which proves there’s always room for us to learn and improve going forward. I haven’t been playing for long and so I’ve enjoyed the CBL where I feel I’ve improved as a player, and to now stand as MVP and an U14 Champion, means a lot to me. We’re all really happy about the W and now it’s on to offseason development!”
