SPORTS SECTION E
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2016
PELICANS WIN
Buddy, Page 3
Women’s national volleyball team advances to 2nd round By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
T
he Bahamas Volleyball Federation women’s national team joined the men in advancing to the second round of the AZOVA qualifying series for the 2018 FIVB World Volleyball Championships. After watching the men book their ticket in Martinique last month to head to Trinidad & Tobago for the next round next year, the women clinched their berth for the second round in Jamaica in July. The women did it by wrapping up their three-game series on Sunday at the Clifton Hunter High School with a 25-16, 25-10, 25-11 win over Bonaire to finish in second place at 2-1. The team lost their opener 25-21, 25-11, 2624 to top finisher Guadeloupe, but bounced back to pull off a 25-10, 25-12, 25-14 win over the Cayman Islands. Team captain Kelsie Johnson, who posted 10 points behind Melinda Bastian’s leading 18 and Brittany Bonamy’s 11, said the team performed as expected with one or two downfalls. “We knew Guadeloupe would be our biggest competitors going into the tournament because they beat us the last CVC, so they were ranked higher than us,” Johnson told The Tribune of the Bahamas’ sixth ranking behind Guadeloup at No.5. “However, I feel as if we were able to play them in the last game, we would have beaten them. We adjusted very well after the second set when we played them, but unfortunately, we had two communication breakdowns that caused us the first set and after leading in the second set, we had
CLINCHING THEIR BERTH: Women’s national volleyball team members with manager Margaret Albury (far left) and coach Jason Saunders (far right). a bad call from the referees in our opinion that really broke our momentum.” Johnson, however, said the goal was to advance to the next level and she was happy that they were able to accomplish that feat. Although she is leaning towards
retirement, Johnson said she was delighted to have returned to help the team. In the process, she was named the co best middle blocker with Sandra Ramier from Guadeloupe. Additionally, Bastian and Bonamy were named the best outside
spikers. Other members of the team, coached by Jason Saunders with Margaret Albury as the manager, were Davia Moss, Shantia Simon, JeNae Saunders, Eugunie Adderley, Avoni Seymour, Courtney Stevens, Latavia Braynen and
Sari Albury. Sixteen-year-old Braynen and Albury, 15, are both high school athletes making their national team debut. Saunders said based on what he had to work with, he thought the
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DeAndre Ayton and the IBA Bahamas/Get Bruins in ‘Sand Between Me Recruited Skills Combine on Saturday Your Toes Showcase’ By RENALDO DORSETT Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamian public will have an early season opportunity to witness the top local basketball talent and a rarity of seeing one of its own Blue Chip prospects playing at home. DeAndre Ayton and his Hillcrest Prep Bruins out of Phoenix, Arizona, are expected to participate in the “Sand Between Your Toes Showcase,” to be hosted November 18-19 at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium and presented by Provenance Insurance. The showcase will be a part of the widely renowned Grind Session Tournament series. Local teams participating in the showcase include the defending Hugh Campbell
and National Champion – CC Sweeting Cobras, the GI Gibson Rattlers, the Tabernacle Baptist Falcons and St George’s Jaguars. In addition to the Bruins, other visiting schools set to compete include Prolific Prep (Napa, California), Victory Rock (Brandenton, Florida), The Conrad Academy (Orlando, Florida), The Tech Academy (Portland, Oregon) and 22 Feet Academy (Anderson, South Carolina.). Prolific Prep is arguably the most highly touted of the group featuring an elite backcourt of Gary Trent Jr and Paul Scruggs. Trent, the recent Duke commit, will play in the Bahamas for the third time after participating in both editions of the Nike EYBL Bahamas exhibition series. A five-star recruit, the
By RENALDO DORSETT Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
DEANDRE AYTON 6’5”, 200-pound guard is ranked No.8 in the ESPN 100 and has been listed as a USA Today Preseason AllAmerican. He averaged 25.9 points per game last season for Apple Valley, Minnesota, and helped lead Team USA to the title at the Under-17
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AS student athletes around the country get ready for the 2016-17 high school basketball season, one organisation is granting them an additional opportunity to refine their skillset. International Basketball Academy (IBA) Bahamas, in conjunction with Get Me Recruited (GMR), will host a Skills Combine November 19-20. IBA Bahamas has impacted the local basketball scene in its brief history led by its director Denycko Bowles, who also serves as the head coach of the Doris Johnson Mystic Marlins. It is the first international branch of the IBA programme. Over the course of the two-day event, hosted from 9am to 5pm, players will be drilled on the advanced fundamentals of the game. “This skills camp is to bring kids out to drill them, teach them the fundamentals of basketball, to explore a lot of problems and implement a lot of things, some they may already know, but how to
also get it in game speed and game focus. It will allow these kids to be very successful within their teams and their schools for the school year. This year we see this as a way forward in terms of getting these kids even more exposure than they already have and allowing them to propel forward in the game of basketball.” The combine is available to all players from 6th grade to post graduate levels at a registration fee of $65. For more information, contact info. ibabahamas@gmail.com or denycko. bowles@gmail.com and registration forms can be picked up from the Doris Johnson campus on Prince Charles Drive. Bowles said participants should expect hard work but an opportunity to learn from a skilled group of trainers from Get Me Recruited. “This is all day. We’re going to go from 9-5 broken down into four different sessions throughout the day. The trainers that are going to be coming down are from the North Carolina area. We have Mr Tim Fields, one of the key trainers who will be down again, and they
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