AFTER a round of intriguing contests and upsets, the 8th Victory Valley Royals Schools’ basketball championship is down to its final four teams. In today’s semi-finals, the Linden Technical Institute (LTI) will play Linden Foundation Secondary (LFS) in the first game at 14:30 hrs while game two brings together defending champions Mackenzie High School (MHS) and Christianburg Wismar Secondary School (Multi).  So far, the biggest upset of tournament was the defeat of LTI by LFS in overtime in a game that brought out the Technical Institute’s weakness which was playing without their star Linden Fraser.  Nicknamed ‘The Sheriff’ because of his presence in the paint, Fraser’s absence brought about a sense of happiness from the LFS players given the fact that there was no one to intimidate them in any way.  The Junior National power forward is so far the tournament’s leading
candidate for the ‘Best Defender’ accolade and has also been a scoring threat to all of the teams given the fact most of his baskets come
from scoring his team’s second chances at the rim. However, with Fraser back today, it would be interesting to see how
LFS match up against an LTI unit with him in it but one thing is for sure – they will be heading into the game boosting with confidence
because of their previous win. Game two is a sort of redemption drive for the defending champions who were soundly beaten by ‘Multi’ when they met in the preliminary round of the tournament.  Only losing to LTI in the tournament so far, ‘Multi’ is a strong contender for the title being led by point guard Emmanuel Archibald and Travis ‘Babylon’ Dryden and had easily defeated MHS when the two met previously. MHS’ Parish Cadogan the tournament’s leading individual scorer (42  points against LFS) is determine to seek revenge and get a chance to really defend their title in the finals on Wednesday.