RICARDO JEMMOTT is a Laker. Peter Bancroft, Kirk Holder and Adrian Stewart are Cougars.
So naturally a two-time champ would lose to the league’s worst team. As if this Premier League basketball season wasn’t strange enough already.
Former MVP Stewart scored a game-high 25 points in his Cougars debut, and the perennial cellar dwellers closed Thursday’s contest on a dramatic 18-2 run to shock pre-tournament favourites Lumber Company Lakers 76-64 at the YMCA.
It was the unlikeliest of results for the Hothersal Turning side, who many have pegged to finish the season at the bottom of the table for the third year running.
This season has been one full of surprises, though, highlighted by schoolboys’ stunning upset of title contenders Jackson last week. But nothing was as odd as seeing one-time Lakers Bancroft, Holder and Stewart on the other side of the trenches, while long-time Cougar Jemmott was the one suited up in Lakers blue.
About the only normalcy surrounding the contest came at the start of the fourth when Lakers held their customary double-digit advantage (56-44) against the team that owns zero Premier League wins in that match-up.
However, Cougars held the Husbands squad to just eight points in the fourth quarter and two over the final 5:41 during one intense late-game rally.
Holder fittingly started the run with a lay-up before Seon Hilliman added one of his own and assisted on another, as Cougars scored the period’s first 11 points without reply on their way to tying the game at 58.
The run seemingly came to an end after Lakers managed to go three straight possessions without turning over the ball, leading to successive Ormond Haynes lay-ups and two-handed dunk by Jemmott. But Stewart finished what Holder started, responding with back-to-back baskets in transition following Holder and Godfrey Leacock’s open court lay-ups to give Cougars their first lead (66-62) of the contest.
Hilliman added a decisive triple for good measure before Holder spun between two defenders for an athletic finger roll, as Lakers could only manage an Andre Boadu lay-up the rest of the way.
The win gave Cougars’ debutant coach Roger Branch a well-deserved victory.
It wasn’t one that many would’ve predicted, though, not when Lakers blew open a 38-36 half-time lead by scoring the next six points as part of a 14-5 third-quarter run.
Cougars actually went scoreless for the period’s first 2:45 minutes until Leacock seemingly ended the surge, and his team’s drought, with a pull-up trey from the right wing.
However, Adrian Allman replied with one of his own before backcourt mate Derek Browne added an open court lay-up to put Lakers ahead 56-44.
Holder and Leacock both finished with 15 points and Hilliman scored 11 for Cougars, who won their first game this season in their second attempt. Jemmott had Lakers’ (1-1) top-score of 16 points, while Ian Alexander and Allman added 15 and 14 points respectively.
In the night’s other game, Halley Franklyn had seven unanswered points – including the go-ahead triple with 3:24 to play – in a decisive 13-4 finish to the game as Act II Popcorn Clapham Bulls kept British American Insurance Jackson winless following a 79-70 victory.
Jeremy Gill led all scorers with 21 points, getting a further 19 from Sean Parris as Clapham improved to 2-0 to start the season. Manuel Alleng was the high man for Jackson with 16 points, while Pearson Griffith had 14 points and 11 rebounds.
