HORIZON successfully defended their title after thrashing Storm 113-89 in the final of the Elite 1 Caribbean Basketball Winter League on Sunday at the National Arena.

Waves copped third place by delivering a similar thrashing to the Rivers 110-86.

Storm started positively, scored the first points of the game, and were competitive in the first quarter, but with two minutes to go Horizon took over by scoring 12 points to Storm’s two for a 10-point lead (28-18). Horizon stamped their class on the match and increased their lead for every quarter after that (59-47, 83-68), posting a final score of 113-89 to retain their championship.

Horizon’s Bobby Gray, who was named MVP, was on fire all over the court, scoring 45 points while getting support from teamates Asaad Woods (18) and Rasheed Maynard Woods (17), while Da’Rell Dominek (30) and Jayrn Johnson (22) were the top scorers for Storm. Storm’s best player all season, Brandon “BDot” Armstrong had his worst game, contributing only six points.

Cleon Morgan, Horizon’s coach, was understandably happy at the end.

“[I] feel pretty elated tonight. We had done it in the summer and this is the winter league and we are able to pull off another championship again. We came out tonight [and] looked a little bit smoother even though we started off a little sloppy. [However], we picked up back the pace and we maintained the lead all the way till the end of the game.”

Storm Coach Oneil Brown thought his team did not play to win.

“Actually, a lot of us struggled. I think the guard play, the red team Horizon have a better guard play than us tonight. I can’t wait to see the stats paper on BDot and others. Their guards outscored us and you can see the score at the end. I am disappointed in my team,” he lamented.

Waves came prepared to close the championship with a win after narrowly missing out on a place in the final. They were pipped by Storm and had to play Rivers for third place. They put on an exhibition to dominate Rivers in every quarter and area of the game (three-pointers, blocks, free throws, defence, etc.). The quarter scores were 30-12, 52-33, 82-67, 110-86.

Lushane Wilson (27 points) and Cameron Burhannon (26) were the top scorers for Waves while Ricky Shuford (35) and the dependable Anthony Ottley (14) carried the scoring for Rivers.

League owner Wayne Dawkins was pleased with how the league went.

“The level of talent we were able to attract down here was extremely high. Our coaching staff did a phenomenal job, our table staff, and everybody else cause we really have to get that down in order to be able to scale and grow this thing and so that, I was very pleased with,” he said.