Cen­tre-court play­er Mori­ba De Fre­itas of lo­cal club team Strak­er Nets made his re­turn to T&T shores over the week­end fol­low­ing his de­but in the Dig­i­cel An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (AB­BA) Di­vi­sion I League which ran from Jan­u­ary to June in St John’s, An­tigua.

De Fre­itas, who played at the cen­tre po­si­tion with the LJ North-Side Stingerz, made an ear­ly im­pres­sion on the AB­BA League with his re­lent­less de­fen­sive pres­ence and six-foot-nine-inch struc­ture.

Through­out the sea­son, he av­er­aged a to­tal of 6.3 points, 12.6 re­bounds, 2.1 blocks and 1.4 as­sists per game.

In the AB­BA play­off fi­nals, De Fre­itas record­ed a sea­son-high 16 re­bounds and nine blocks in the fi­nale of a game-five se­ries be­tween North-Side and the F&G Trad­ing Cutie’s Ovals Ojays. His dom­i­nance earned him the Dig­i­cel’s "Most Out­stand­ing Play­er" award de­spite the team’s 69-57 loss in the fi­nal con­test.

The for­mer Un­der-17 na­tion­al play­er and US ath­let­ic schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent were hap­py to add more ac­com­plish­ments to his bas­ket­ball ca­reer.

He said, "It was a suc­cess­ful sea­son for the Stingerz or­gan­i­sa­tion and my­self and I be­lieve the per­son­al goals I set were ac­com­plished, even though we didn’t win the cham­pi­onship."

In shar­ing his over­all ex­pe­ri­ence, De Fre­itas said, "I love the An­tiguan cul­ture and the AB­BA league was a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain some ex­po­sure and show­case my tal­ent."

In 2009, the 19-year-old Mori­ba was award­ed a schol­ar­ship to Willis­ton State Col­lege, be­fore head­ing to NCAA Di­vi­sion I school, Pep­per­dine Uni­ver­si­ty in 2011. Af­ter spend­ing two sea­sons at Pep­per­dine, De Fre­itas com­plet­ed his last year of el­i­gi­bil­i­ty at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty - Dominguez Hills, Car­son, Cal­i­for­nia.

On his pos­si­ble re­turn to An­tigua, De Fre­itas said, “The team I played for was wel­com­ing and I see no prob­lem go­ing back to play for such a gen­uine or­gan­i­sa­tion. I hope that my per­for­mance will open doors for more young T&T bas­ket­ball play­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the fu­ture."