ST CATHERINE High and Calabar High have taken early 1-0 leads in their 2015-2016 Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Southern Basketball Conference (SBC) best-of-three Under-16 and Under-19 finals, respectively, at the Campion College school court last Friday.

The Spanish Town-based St Catherine surprised many-time champions St George’s College 56-54 in the Under-16, while the Red Hills Road-based defending champions Calabar held off a stiff challenge from the Eastern Kingston-based Camperdown High 48-45 in the Under-19 encounter.

Both matches were evenly contested throughout where they could have gone either way.

Winning coach of St Catherine, Lennox Lindo, said: “It was a good win for us but we had to fight hard, especially in the final quarter, where it could have gone either way, but we stepped up to the challenge and held off our opponents to come out winners.”

Lindo said the players relaxed too much in the second and third quarters after leading at the break in the first quarter. “We will be trying to clinch the title in game two, but we expect St George’s will be coming out fighting all the way to level the series.”

Losing coach Clifford Brown said: “We lost the match in the fourth and final quarter as they wasted too many turnovers and allowed St Catherine to capitalise on our mistakes. They will have to do much better in Game Two scheduled for today.”

He said he told the players to step up their game as they were trailing and it paid off in the closing minutes of the final quarter. “The players are now more confident from this victory and will be going all out in Game Two and hoping to clinch the series.”

Coach Brown said this was the first defeat of the season for St George’s, and that they will have to go all out for victory in Game Two because there will be no tomorrow.

Meanwhile, winning coach of Calabar, Ludloo Barker said: “It was a close win but we were not nervous despite Camperdown having the lead going into the final quarter and the scores locked at 41 a little over two minutes of playing time remaining.

“We maintained our game plan despite we were a bit worried with our offensive tactics, but our defensive plays were very fine. We are looking to close it off in Game Two, but we have to be very disciplined in our approach. Camperdown is a very good team and they will be going all out to level the series, but we will be standing up to the challenge. They also have some big and tall players and they shoot from outside but we will be keeping them in check nevertheless,” said a confident Barker.

Assistant coach of Camperdown Rolando Moodie said: “The players are inexperienced as it is the first time they are reaching the final.

“We wasted too many turnovers, especially at the free throw line in the final quarter and that caused us to lose.

“I think that we have the ability to beat Calabar but we need to maintain our lead, especially in the final quarter where this is always very crucial. We can beat the defending champions as what we have seen in Game One where they have to fight hard to win, and luckily for them they narrowly came out winners,” Moodie said.

Daniel Jones was the principal scorer for St Catherine with a game-high 24 points, including six three-pointers, and teammate Swayveon Henry added 11 points; while for St George’s College, Samera Williams scored 21 points, had nine rebounds, seven steals and five assists, and Jordan Gillies had 13 points and 10 rebounds in the Under-16 final.

Quarterly scores in the Under-16 encounter were: 15-11 to St Catherine High; 33-26 (half-time) to St George’s College; and 43-39 to St George’s College.

In the Under-19 final, Malick McCarthy scored 18 points and added 13 rebounds, five blocked shots and four steals, and Shemar Shand assisted with 11 points for Calabar, while the top scorers for Camperdown were Shaquille Allen with 13 points and Dasean Boyd with 11 points.

Quarterly scores in the Under-19 game were: 16-14 to Calabar High; 24-23 (half time) to Calabar High; and 37-36 to Camperdown High.

Meanwhile, Game Two in both sections will be played today at the National Indoor Sports Centre with St Catherine High vs St George’s College in Under-16 event at 4:00 pm, and Camperdown High vs Calabar High in the Under-19 final two hours later.