Muschett, Herbert chase berths in U-14 final
WAKEFIELD, Trelawny — The two places in the finals of the ISSA/KFC/Western Conference boys Under-14 basketball league wile be up for grabs this afternoon as Muschett High and Herbert Morrison meet in the final preliminary-round game of the season.
Both teams, as well as defending champions Cornwall College, are vying for a place in the decider as well as a berth in the National Play-offs set for early June.
Cornwall, winners of the previous three stagings of the event, ended their preliminaries with a big loss going down by 23 points, 24-47, to Muschett on Wednesday and their grip on a place in the finals seem to have slipped.
The Montego Bay school was losing successive games for the first time this season after being beaten by Herbert Morrison last week.
However, they have filed a protest over the use of a Muschett player who is said to have played in the Under-16 tournament but was playing in his first game in the Under-14 contest on Wednesday.
Cornwall are questioning whether or not the the player was duly registered with ISSA.
Cornwall finished on nine points while Herbert Morrison is on eight and Muschett on seven.
A win for Herbert Morrison today would see both St James schools advancing, but a win for Muschett would see them progressing, along with Herbert Morrison, on the second tie-breaker points differential.
The first tie-breaker was head-to-head wins, but if Muschett win, all teams would have identical three win and three losses and would be tied on nine points.
Also, Cornwall would have beaten Muschett twice but would have lost to Herbert Morrison the same number of times, while Muschett would have beaten Herbert Morrison twice, hence the second tie-breaker of points differential.
With two new players coming in, Muschett, who had two close losses to Cornwall, dominated Wednesday’s game, leading 11-0 after the first quarter and were up 20-12 at half-time and 32-18 going into the fourth quarter.
Alston Billings led the scoring for Muschett with 18 points.