MONTEGO BAY, St James — WESTERN schools Holland High and St Elizabeth Technical (STETHS) will meet in this afternoon’s third place play-offs in the ISSA/KFC national Under 16 basketball at the national stadium after closes losses in the semi-finals on Tuesday.

Holland who won the school’s first ISSA title last month when they won the Western Coherence Under 16 competition over Rhodes Hall, went down 46-54 to defending champions St George’s College at the Montego Bay Cricket Club while STETHS lost by two points 36-38 to Belair High in Mandeville.

Despite giving up a slim lead late in the game and losing, Holland’s coach Ricardo Brooks was positive and said they had “a good season”.

Brooks who is in his first season as the team’s coach said they are looking forward to today’s game as “being third overall in the island is not bad at all and would be a big achievement for us.”

After getting off to a slow start, Holland played one of their best games of the season, coming off a poor showing against St Jago High in the quarterfinals, and led by one point 46-45 with four minutes and 10 seconds to go.

After playing outstanding defence for most of the game, they however lost concentration and allowed the Kinston school to score the last nine points of the game.

With one minute and 20 seconds to go, St George’s College’s Derjean Grant stole the ball at half court and scored to put his team up by three points then Janos Raebel scored the last five points in the contest.

Earlier St George’s got off to a fast start scoring the first five points of the game and despite a 7-4 run by the ‘home’ team, led 15-7 at the end of the first quarter.

Holland scored the first 10 points of the second quarter in two minutes 50 seconds to take the lead for the first time at 17-15 but the scores were tied at 24-all at the half time break.

The Kingston school raced into a four-point lead 32-28 at the start of the third quarter but another run by Holland – six straight points brought them level. They trailed by just a point going into the final quarter.

Shawn Graham who played with four fouls from late in the third quarter, was the top scorer for St George’s College with 21 points and 13 rebounds while Derjean Grant and Stefan Green both scored 10 points each.

Holland’s Clifton Shettleworth led all scorers with 22 points and eight rebounds, Kenrick Lindo scored seven points and had 13 rebounds while Okarie Edwards scored just three points but held 20 rebounds.