Last night we told you that team Belize failed to defend its title in the Central American Games held last week in Panama City. Four years ago our national team shelled Guatemala on their home court and came home with gold medals. That unfortunately didn't happen this year as Panama, who had the home court advantage, whipped us 103 to 58 in the championship match. Our boys still came home with silver and today they joined other athletes who participated in the games at the City Center conference room for a celebration of sorts. Brads Neal headed the basketball delegation to Panama and he says today they didn't gather to celebrate their loss. He explains.
Brads Neal,
"This isn't about recognition, this is about that for first time in basketball we took out all local players. We didn't bring in any imports, it was all local players and mind you we had two young men that had their 17th birthday out there and the team performed well. It was a great experience for us, the contingent of nineteen went out there and we competed for the Central American Games title that we had, defending our gold medal but unfortunately we got to the medal round buy Panama a was a lot better than us.
When you are not prepared to play games in five nights, that would be the end result of it. The guys they tried very hard but a lot of guys were cramping up in the game and we just couldn't out it together for the final game. I think we accomplished a lot because mind you, we went up against powerful countries like Guatemala who had their imports in, Nicaragua as well had their imports in and we beat those team to get to the gold medal round so we're not saying that we're happy we didn't win the gold definitely grateful for what we accomplished out there, with our local players."
Kevin Siroke, Natioan Team Coach
"It would have been a total loss if we came home with nothing. at least we gave ourselves the opportunity to play for the gold medal, even though we didn't succeed in getting the gold medal, the silver is great too. I am really proud that we took all local guys; we had two of our better players at the very that end cancelled out on us and we had to substitute some other players for them but we were satisfied."
National team coach Kevin Siroke says 12 players went for Belize and captain Ian "AC" Augustine and newcomer Stephen Williams were stars of the tournament. Incidentally Williams leaves Belize this weekend for Lakeland Junior College where he hopes to get a basketball scholarship. Siroke says the national team is now preparing for the Central Basketball Tournament in May. A win there will guarantee Belize a slot in the Tournament of the Americas.
