Campion College Basketball: Campionites season comes to an end, with loss to St. Catherine

Date: 24/01/08 [44-58] {Record: 2-5} Venue: Radley Reid Arena (Campion College)
[Home: 2-1][Away: 0-4]

St. Catherine High officially put an end to Campion College's bid for a playoff/quarterfinal spot as action continued in the Southern Zone of the ISSA/KFC/Pepsi Basketball Competition. The Campionites, who came into this match needing to win, went down in a match that was for the most part closely contested. At halftime the score was 17-26 and the Campionites looked a bt shaky. However they made great efforts in their comeback and drew close to St. Catherine team before finally allowing the match and hence their season, to slip away. The match eventually ended 58 - 44.


SLIPPED AWAY
As the match came down to the final five minutes Campion had drawn withint two points of their opponents. However, offensive blunders turned into easy fast break points which allowed St. Catherine to balloon back the lead to double digits. As the match came to a close, they knew that their spirited season was over.

FIRST HOME LOSS
This match was the first home loss for the Campionites who had previously been undefeated (2 - 0). (Though the loss to Calabar came at their home, it was scheduled and is still regarded as an away encounter).

ONE MATCH TO GO
They still have one match to go against Tarrant and the team is hoping to end their season on a high, not only due to pride but also the fact that most of these players are also seniors meaning this is their last year of high school basketball.
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STATS

Scorers
Russel Thompson 23 points
James Deane 9 points
Xavier Thompson 8 points

Rebounders
Xavier Thompson 14 rebounds
Jason Blankson 13 rebounds
Leighton Samuels 8 rebounds
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Starting Lineup:
C Leighton Samuels [6'4, 170 lbs]
PF Kim Sing Yung [5'10, 150 lbs]
SF Graham Reid [5'11, 155 lbs]
SG Darren Mitchell [5'10, 150 lbs]
PG Jason Blankson [5'9, 185 lbs]

Bench:
James Deane (Captain) [5'11, 145 lbs]
Xavier Thompson [6'3, 205 lbs]
Russell Thompson (Vice-Captain) [5'10, 195 lbs]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GAME NOTES
Benching Russel Thompson, Xavier Thompson & James Deane was a coaching strategy.
This was the only match where Campion's top three scorers (Deane, R. Thompson & X. Thompson) all came off the bench.
The first game more than two players had 8+ rebounds (X. Thompson, Samuels, Blankson).
Blankson, Samuels and Xavier Thompson collectively tallied 35 rebounds [X. Thompson, 14, Blankson, 13 and Samuels, 8]
Russel Thompson, Xavier Thompson, Leighton Samuels, James Deane & Jason Blankson played the majority of the match.
Darren Mitchell, Graham Reid and Kim saw minority minutes.
Mikhail Mattis did not play due to injury (knee) and is doubtful for their match against Tarrant.