Basketball: Curtain-raiser tournament Semifinalists known |06 May 2022
The finalists of the Curtain-raiser tournaments will be known this coming weekend when teams clash in the semifinals at Victoria Gymnasium.
In the women’s competition, Anse Etoile Stars will meet B Challenge in the first semifinal at 3.45pm tomorrow and on Sunday HotShots will meet Mont Fleuri at the same time.
Since only four women’s teams took part in the competition, they were divided into two groups of two. Winners of the two group games face the losers in the cross knockout semifinals.
In pool A, Anse Etoile Stars beat Mont Fleuri 73-47, while Anse Boileau-based HotShots walked over B Challenge in pool B.
Cascade Bullets booked their place into Sunday’s division two semifinal with AB Boys when they defeated BABA 70-44 on Wednesday.
With the win, their second in as many matches in group B, the Bullets finished on top with 4 points.
Mont Fleuri Ballerz were second with 3 points and BABA third with 2 points.
As for AB Boys, they won group C after twice beating Anse Royale 61-25 and 67-33.
The other semifinal see Praslin Boys clash with Anse Etoile tomorrow at 3.45pm.
Praslin Boys won their two matches in group A against St Louis Saints (52-33) and MBU Boys (58-52).
Anse Etoile, on the other hand, met PLS Suns twice in pool D and won 52-47 and 66-34.
In the men’s division one, PLS Hawks will clash with Beau Vallon Heat tomorrow at 5.30pm and Baya will meet Premium Cobras on Sunday at the same time.
Playing in pool A, the Hawks collected two victories against Premium Cobras (53-46) and Mont Fleuri Dawgz (57-38) to finish first with 4 points to set up a semifinal showdown with group B runners-up Beau Vallon Heat whose only win came against Drifters on a 86-66 score. They lost their other match to Baya (60-73).
Baya’s win against Beau Vallon Heat was their only victory in the group stage as they lost 71-77 to Drifters, meaning all three teams in group B finished with 3 points.
On the head to head rule, Baya were ranked first, followed in second place by Beau Vallon Heat. In fact the two teams were tied on basket difference ‒ 7 ‒ (144 for and 137 against for Baya) and (146 for and 139 against for Beau Vallon Heat). As a result, basket average was used to separate them ‒ Baya 1.051 compared to the Heat’s 1.05.
Drifters had to settle for third place with a basket difference of -14 (134 for and 157 against).
Baya will now play Premium Cobras in the second semifinal on Sunday at 5.30pm.
Gerard Govinden