IN a game marred by bad ball-handling, missed free throws, and horrible shooting from the field by Guyana, Suriname hammered the visitors 71-41 to win the three-game Goodwill Series on Sunday evening, at the Ismay Van Wilgen Sports Hall in Paramaribo. Suriname had won the first and Guyana bounced back to claim a convincing win in game two, making Sunday’s game a ‘winner take the crown’ showdown between the two countries.
With both countries preparing for the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championship and are also placed in the same group (along with Bahamas and Bermuda), the three-game series was set to give the respective coaches a chance to have a ‘feel’ of the competition and to fine-tune their squad.
While Suriname were assembling for the first time, bringing in their USA- and Holland-based players to face their fellow South American rivals, Guyana were playing in their second series, having swept Bermuda last month.
Coach Darcel Harris’ men were hyped before the game last Sunday, after easily beating Suriname in the game before, but the Dutch players were more than ready for whatever the Guyanese brought out.
Guyana’s back court of Dave Causeway, Shelroy Thomas, Travis Burnett and Akeem Kanhai were destructive in the previous games, but Suriname apparently did their homework and it reflected when they stopped the Guyanese from penetrating the ‘paint’ while running the floor.
Suriname went on a 12-0 run in the first quarter and headed into the second leading 20-6. Guyana seemed tired and it reflected when, though having the quicker players, the host team outplayed them at both ends of the floor.
Turnovers once again plagued the Guyanese as Kanhai, who finished with five points and eight rebounds, mishandled six times; most of which were turned into baskets by Suriname.
At halftime, the scoreboard read Suriname 34, Guyana 16.
Though being able to find the basket in the third quarter as compared to the two previous periods, Guyana had a mountain to climb, especially since their usual scorers (Ryan Gullen, Causeway, Kanhai and Burnett) were cold from the floor.
Collectively the team shot 14 from 50 field goal attempts (nine of 24 from behind the arc) and made only nine of their 25 free-throws.
Still down (29-50) to start the final period, Suriname didn’t take their feet off the pedal and kept pressing Guyana, hammering the men from ‘GT’ and outscored them 21-12 (71-41) to take the series.
Burnett was the team’s top scorer with ten points and Jason Squires six.
After the game, Harris told Chronicle Sport that the series, though fatiguing, offered his staff a chance to properly assess the players and will now work on their areas of weakness and build on their strong points.
He said that while they lost the series, he was happy with the way they played throughout, especially taking the circumstances into consideration.

By Rawle Toney