ANY PLANS WARRIORS had of getting vengeance on the Cavs will have to be put on hold.
Kelvin Patterson had a game-high 22 points off the bench and Premier League basketball champs Mpact Station Hill Cavaliers survived a furious fourth-quarter rally before pulling out a 96-91 overtime victory over First Works Warriors in Saturday’s rematch of last season’s semi-final series at the Wildey Gym.
The stage couldn’t be any more fitting for Warriors to exact revenge for last year’s sweep, opening this season against the team that ended their last.
And the drama unfolded like true theatre, as the champs watched all of a ten-point fourth-quarter lead (80-70) vanished in the last two minutes of regulation when Tremaine Shaw’s lay-up with 7.1 seconds remaining capped a 12-2 Warriors run.
Even Corey McDonald’s subsequent game-saving block seemed to suggest fortune favoured the Dayrells Road side.
But Patterson scored eight points in the extra period as Cavs never trailed, with Warriors wasting two possessions to take the lead late in the session before scoring only two points over the final 1:15.
This was after Station Hill went up by as many as six in overtime (88-82), following four quick Patterson points and a questionable technical foul on Shaw’s older brother Kirk, who was whistled after cursing himself for missing a lay-up.
However, the champs nearly squandered that advantage too after Ricardo “Aru” Toussaint responded with a lay-up to go along with five straight points between the Shaw boys.
Unlike in the fourth quarter, though, those heroics only pulled Warriors within one (90-89), and Patterson put an end to the threat by scoring off a nifty post move, before the younger Shaw’s intentional foul on Jason Smith put the game out of reach.
It was almost the third such advantage thrown away by the Cavs, who led by as many as 16 points (47-31) late in the first-half following Station Hill’s assault against Warriors’ hapless interior defence.
Warriors didn’t help themselves any at the other end either, settling for several one-on-one moves while going one for ten from behind the arc in the first half.
But the younger Shaw began to attack in transition and McDonald added three jumpers, as Warriors scored six unanswered points to start the third quarter as part of a 22-12 run that reduced the deficit to four (59-55).
The Dayrells Road side actually led midway through the fourth (68-67) on the heels of Toussaint’s brief outburst, only to watch Darren Hunte and Junior Moore rattle off 11 points between them to restore the champs’ lead to double digits (80-70).
Moore finished with 18 points and 16 rebounds, Hunte scored 17 and Smith had 14 points for the two-time defending league champs. McDonald led Warriors with 20 points, Tremaine Shaw scored 19, while Toussaint added 16 points and 12 boards.
In the night’s second game, Ramon Simmons continued his fine start to the season, scoring 19 of a league-best 34 points in the first quarter of Pinelands’ 76-59 rout of Patriots.
The national swingman went five of seven from deep in that opening period before returning for nine fourth-quarter points to quell a threatening Patriots rally.
It followed a similar performance on Tuesday, where Simmons had 18 of his 23 points in the first quarter against Cougars. Charles Vanderpool added 12 points, 12 rebounds and nine blocks in the win, while Julian Walcott topscored for Patriots with 20.
