Home|Sports|GSSSA basketball gets underway todaySports
Simba FrenchSend an emailJanuary 11, 2023 111 2 minute readFacebookTwitterLinkedInShare via Email
After not being able to stage games for the past two years, one of the top high school sports leagues, the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association (GSSSA), will get its 2023 basketball regular season underway this afternoon at the Kendal G.L. Isaacs National Gymnasium and the C.I. Gibson Senior High School Gymnasium.
President of GSSSA Varel Davis said they are excited to finally be playing basketball again, despite having to push the start date from December 2022 to this month because of examinations.
“We’re now about to begin our GSSSA basketball season. We were preparing from last term and a lot of them took advantage of various tournaments that was held to fine-tune their teams. Coaches have been working extremely hard preparing their teams for competition,” Davis said. “After two years break, a lot has changed. We find ourselves working extra hard because these kids haven’t played much sports from 2020. We are excited to be back and can’t wait to see who will be the 2023 GSSSA basketball champions.”
Action gets underway at 4 p.m. this afternoon. The senior high schools will play at the Kendal Isaacs gym and the junior high schools will play at C.I. Gibson. The Doris Johnson Mystic Marlins and the C.C. Sweeting Cobras girls and boys teams will face each other with the girls playing first. The Mystic Marlins boys are the defending champions.
At the C.I. Gibson gym, there will be three games in the junior high division. The C.H. Reeves Raptors and the A.F. Adderley Tigers girls and boys teams will play the first two games with the girls playing first. The final game at C.I. Gibson will pit the T.A. Thompson Scorpions and the L.W. Young Eagles against each other in junior boys action.
Entry fee for students is $2 and for adults, it’s $3. Games will start at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The C.I. Gibson Rattlers are the senior girls defending champions. The D.W. Davis Royals junior boys will be going for a sixth straight title while the Scorpions are the junior girls defending champions.
Basketball is the fourth discipline that the GSSSA is orchestrating for the 2022-2023 school year. They began with cross country running and then baseball and softball took place concurrently.
“Cross country went very well,” Davis said. “We had over 500 athletes compete in the GSSSA cross country meet as well other meets that were held last term. [Cross country] opened up our conditioning season, not just for track and field but for the other sports as well. Softball and baseball went extremely well. It shows how much talent we have in our government schools, especially in boys baseball.”
Capturing the junior girls softball title was the H.O Nash Lions while the Mystic Marlins won the senior girls title. The R.M Bailey Senior High Pacers won the senior boys baseball while the Tigers secured the junior boys title.
After the basketball season, the GSSSA will move to its track and field championship, set for early March and that will be followed by volleyball. They will end the sports year with soccer.