For­ward Uth­man Bi­lal left every­thing on the court at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na to help Holy Cross Col­lege es­cape with a nar­row one-point win over Trin­i­ty Col­lege East in the open­ing match of the Boys' Un­der-20 Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Bas­ket­ball League's (SS­BL) East Zone com­pe­ti­tion on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

It was in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble-head­er that Bi­lal top-scored with 20 points in guid­ing the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on of the di­vi­sion to a 49-48 vic­to­ry fol­low­ing a short open­ing func­tion which saw the chair­man of the Zone and pres­i­dent of the SS­BL, Ish­mael St Bryce, wel­com­ing all to the new sea­son and his ex­pec­ta­tions of a suc­cess­ful and ex­cit­ing com­pe­ti­tion this year.

For Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Samuel Wal­dron was as im­pres­sive of­fen­sive­ly, match­ing Bi­lal with 20 points, and emerged the "Most Valu­able Play­er" (MVP) for his team while Shoga So­morin won it for the win­ner, Holy Cross.

Ear­li­er in the first match, Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary for­ward Nick­o­lai Mills shined in his team's lop­sided 71-30 win over Hillview Col­lege.

Mills, who was last sea­son's "Most Promis­ing Play­er", notched 24 points in earn­ing Ste­fan Dil­lon-coached Tu­na­puna team, the 41-point vic­to­ry, shar­ing the team's MVP award with Jadon Daniel.

Stephen Ed­wards was the lone play­er for Hillview Col­lege, coached by Christo­pher Jack­son Charles, reach­ing dou­ble fig­ures with 11.

Ac­tion con­tin­ues to­day with an­oth­er U-20 dou­ble­head­er at the same venue from 1 pm.

Re­sults

U-20 Di­vi­sion

Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary 71 (Nick­o­lai Mills 24) vs Hillview Col­lege 30 (Stephen Ed­wards 11).

Holy Cross Col­lege 49 (Uth­man Bi­lal 20) vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 48 (Samuel Wal­dron 20).

Match­es

To­day (Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na)

Boys U-20

To­co Sec vs North East­ern Col­lege, 1 pm

El Do­ra­do East vs St George's Col­lege, 2.15 pm

To­mor­row (Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na)

Girls U-20

Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary vs Bish­ops, 1 pm

Boys U-20

San Juan North vs Hillview Col­lege, 2 pm

Fri­day

Boys U-15 (East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na)

El Do­ra­do East Sec vs Holy Cross, 12.15 pm

Mt Hope Sec vs El Do­ra­do West Sec, 1 pm

Boys U-20

Hillview Col­lege vs El Do­ra­do East, 2 pm