By Daniel Haynes

IT could not have been written better, Guyana blowing out Barbados 77-37 to progress to the final of the Caribbean Basketball Confederation U16 Male Championships. In the process, the Guyana team created history reaching their first CBC male U16 final final. The scores were tied 27-27 at one point in the game, but no one would guess that from the final scoreline.

The first half saw Guyana taking apart the Barbados defence going on another scoring rampage that they had in the Trinidad and Tobago game.
The Barbados team did not make it easy for Guyana however, jumping to an 8-2 lead. But be it by big outside jump shots by Kevon Wiggins, who dropped a defender to hit a three, or huge rebounding by Jordan Alphonso, the team battled to end the quarter 19-15.
The team took the lead in the second quarter through Jordan Alphonso playing the post position like a man possessed. The turnover equation however saw Guyana end the first half with a one point lead 30-29.
The second half started and Guyana decided that they were done making it close and just kicked into overdrive. The tide was turned not only on the offensive end but the defensive end.
Guyana had the best defensive half of the tournament holding the Bajans to 8 points in the half. As if holding them to 8 points were not enough, Guyana then went on to score 47 points in the half, showing the potential fans knew they had.
As the final buzzer sounded, the near capacity crowd at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall erupted as if a bomb had went off. It was what fans were waiting for, and with the victory, the Guyanese joined the Bahamas in the finals today.
Alphonso had a game high of 16 points with 11 rebounds and Nigel Bowen had a breakout game with 14 points and 11 rebounds.
For Barbados, Makaari Jones had 13 points and seven boards, and his Barbados team will take on Jamaica for third today.
Meanwhile, in other matchups of the day, Trinidad and Tobago beat Dominica 65-43, British Virgin Islands lost to Suriname 65-70 and Aruba lost to Antigua and Barbuda 85-71. The Bahamas beat Jamaica 72-51 to be the first team in the finals.