Warriors finally take first Western Basketball title
Levar Rose, coach of Montego Bay Boys and Girls Club Warriors is happy they were able to get the team over ‘the hump’ to win their first ever Western Basketball Association Division One title.
The Warriors won the best of three finals 2-1 over UWI-WJC Jayhawks on Sunday night at the MoBay Cricket Club court, with a 68-61 win.
“Montego Bay Boys and Girls Club has never won a championship despite being in the league for quite some years now. They contacted me to say they needed a coach to see if they could get over that hump. I did some recruitment in the offseason and that was the aim,” said Rose.
“We wanted to go undefeated. Unfortunately, we lost one game but we still came out with what we set out for when the season started,” he added.
The team won the first game 96-61 on September 2 without captain Tafari Vassell, who came back last Friday for the last two games to drag them over the line.
Rose praised Vassell for getting game ready in a short space of time.
“For him to jump basically off a flight and get ready for a finals match (Saturday) was hard. He had to adjust, getting his mind ready and added to that, the team was practising without him being here,” said Rose.
David Gordon led the Warriors in the game one win with 32 points.
He did not play the second game last Saturday that they lost 66-67 despite Vassell’s 32 points.
Rose believes his return in the must-win finale was crucial to their victory.
Gordon, who is also the goalkeeper of Herbert Morrison High School’s daCosta Cup team, was doubtful to play games two and three of the finals for fear of getting injured.
“When you don’t have multiple threats that the opposing team would have to worry about, then all they can do is focus on one. So in the game that David Gordon wasn’t present, they focused on Tafari with double teams denying him the ball,” said Rose.
“In the game last night (Sunday), when we had both Vassell and Gordon, they couldn’t double team. So we just took advantage,” he added.