Guyana Challenge Series and skills competition

STEPHON George was the top 3-points shooter and Tavishti Persaud claimed the best free throw shooter on Sunday when Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) officially tipped off their year of activities with their challenge series and skills competition featuring schools from around the country.

The skills competition involved 3 pointing, free throw and skills combined contest with the latter being won by Simeon Sinclair.

YBG Director Chris Bowman told Chronicle Sport that the pre-season tournament achieved its objective of really giving schools nationwide an opportunity to get off the court rustiness with a quick pace format.

He added that it gives coaching staff a chance to evaluate their players in competition game situation to better access who are their best player as they begin to intensify training for their respective regional championship next month.

Meanwhile the team’s competition segment saw several categories contested included boys under 21, 14, and 16 and under 18.

The girls only played under 18 with all games lasting for 10 minutes divided two halves of five minutes with team allowed, no substitutes, with schools allowed to field as much teams as possible to give all their player necessary court time.

This year saw 50 teams drawn from 22 schools from regions' 3, 4, 6, 7 and 10 with Bishops’ High Secondary entering the 9 teams and Kwakwani secondary field 7 teams the most for the competition.

The two day event which bounced off on Saturday was designed to promote the fundamentals of the game by testing student athletes skills in shooting, passing, dribbling as student begin preparation for the regionals basketball championship which leads into to the National School Basketball Festival later this year.

The regional championship is set to get started on March 15th around the country. YBG is sponsored National Sport Commission, G-boat Guyana and Edward B Beharry Group of companies.