THE official culmination of the Mackeson Super-Ward Basketball Championship took place yesterday at the offices of the Ansa McAl group. Under its Mackeson Milk Stout brand name, the main sponsor of the maiden voyage of the national event, the various sponsors of the respective prizes made good on their commitments as benefactors. In excess of nine hundred thousand dollars was doled out as financial remuneration for the top four positions which featured two teams from Georgetown and two teams from Linden with Georgetown fostering the tournament champions Charlestown/Albouystown while the other side North Ruimveldt, current Georgetown inter-ward champions, placed fourth.
Along with the champion’s trophy Charlestown/Albouystown were the recipients of the $500 000 first prize while North Ruimveldt received $75 000 for their efforts.
Charlestown/Albouystown received some more of the limelight as their point-guard Rodwell ‘Kobe’ Fortune was recognised as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) and received a trophy, a pair of basketball sneakers, both of which were the compliments of Giftland OfficeMax, and a Playstation2 video game console, matching game disc and $20 000 from Gizmos and Gadgets.
Central Mackenzie who placed a well deserved second were rewarded with $250 000 while their fellow Lindeners, Christianburg received the $150 000 third prize. The Linden teams received much acclaim from the president of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA), Trevor Rose, who believes that they performed admirably throughout the tournament.
Rose believes that the event was nothing short of perfection and thanked Ansa McAl’s Managing Director Beverley Harper for buttressing GABA’s efforts with her company’s financial strength.
He expressed the wish to make such partnerships between GABA and Ansa McAl a regular occurrence and also said that such team work will be conducive to making future segments of the event better. Rose also acknowledged improvements in this competition that were evident as opposed to others of the same nature and he attributed this to Ansa McAl’s input.
“This year there was a great improvement in the players, the $500 000 really brought out the best in them,” he said. Rose closed by thanking all of the respective sponsors for everything that they did to make the inaugural Mackeson Super-Ward Championships a success.
This was much to the delight of Ansa McAl’s Managing Director as she related that her company happily spends a lot of money on sport in order to achieve the same end goal of encouraging the development of youths.
She related that “Ansa McAl spends a lot of money on sport and we are happy to do so as sports is a way to develop youths.” She continued that it serves to strengthen discipline among other positive traits.