Kens­ley Sandy and Ian Carter helped De­fence Force open its sea­son with a win, tak­ing down Roy­al­ty Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my, 75-60, in the First Di­vi­sion of the Kelvin Roberts North Zone Bas­ket­ball Com­mis­sion's League at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day night.

Sandy pro­duced a match-high 18 points and had good sup­port from Carter with 10 to lead the army/coast guard com­bi­na­tion team's of­fence. De­fence Force held the ad­van­tage at the end of each quar­ter–21-12 in the first, 38-26 at half­time and 55-41 in the third, be­fore claim­ing the 15-point win.

For Roy­al­ty, Esan Babb top­scored with 13 points while team­mates Chris­t­ian Gel­le­neau and Ja­son Best added 12 and 10, re­spec­tive­ly in a los­ing ef­fort in the open­ing match of a dou­ble-head­er.

Lat­er, Coach KG Elite al­so scored a win in its sea­son-open­er, de­feat­ing Ba­sic Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my, 79-62, de­spite a match-high 25 points from Adam Salazar. Through the ef­forts of Kern George (19), Randy Greenidge (15) and Cypri­an Wing­ham (10), Elite led through­out the match with the quar­ter scores read­ing 23-13, 39-25 and 62-43 all in favour of the even­tu­al win­ner.

As­sist­ing Salazar on of­fence was Shay­on King with 10 points for Ba­sic Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my.

On Thurs­day, First Di­vi­sion's de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Strak­er Nets, whose A team of Sadi­ki Guer­ra had sup­port from Chike Au­gus­tine, Ama­ree Toney and Gari Bar­clay topped the Zone's open­ing day 3x3 Tour­na­ment, will aim to con­tin­ue their win­ning ways when ac­tion re­sumes with an­oth­er dou­ble-head­er at the Wood­brook venue.

Strak­er Nets will face Spar­tans TT in their sea­son open­er at 8.30 pm. In the first match, To­geth­er­ness takes on Trail­blaz­ers at 6.30 pm.

The Strak­er-based unit will be seek­ing to de­fend its ti­tle against eight oth­er teams in­clud­ing De­fence Force, Spar­tans TT, Coach KG Elite, To­geth­er­ness, Trail­blaz­er, Mal­oney Pac­ers, Roy­al­ty and Ba­sic Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my.

In the 3x3 Tour­na­ment on the week­end, Strak­er A met Elite Love of the Coach KG Elite club quar­tet, Kern George, Alex­ie Alex­is, JJ Ed­wards-Carac­ci­o­lo and Cris­t­ian Far­num, and emerged the win­ner with a 19-18 vic­to­ry in the fi­nal.

Re­sults

Roy­al­ty 60 (Esan Babb 13, Chris­t­ian Gel­le­neau 12, Ja­son Best 10) vs De­fence Force 75 (Kens­ley Sandy 18, Ian Carter 10). Quar­ter scores: 1st 21-12 2nd 38-26, 3rd 55-41 (All in favour of De­fence Force).

Ba­sic Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my 62 (Adam Salazar 25, Shay­on King 10) vs Coach KG Elite 79 (Kern George 19, Randy Greenidge 15, Cypri­an Wing­ham 10). Quar­ter scores: 1st 23-13, 2nd 39-25, 3rd 62-43 (All in favour of Elite).

Match­es

To­day

First Di­vi­sion

To­geth­er­ness vs Trail­blaz­ers, 6.30 pm

Spar­tans TT vs Strak­er Nets, 8.30 pm

Sun­day

U-17 Di­vi­sion: CKG Elite vs Roy­al­ty, 3 pm

O-45 Di­vi­sion: Vet­er­ans Sweaters vs NFM Vet­er­ans, 5 pm

First Di­vi­sion: Mal­oney Pac­ers vs De­fence Force, 7 pm