BOMBERS, JUSTICE TAKE GOLDEN HOOPS TITLES

By Jay Leon Guerrero

The Golden Hoops basketball league wrapped up its championship day on Sunday with two top seed teams easily winning their respective divisions.

The Andersen Bombers finished their season undefeated after they defeated the MTM Falcons 72-58 to win the varsity division while Team Justice won the co-ed recreational division title after defeating the Elegant Reflections Sticky Bandits 51-36.

The road to the championship game for both the Falcons (varsity division) and Elegant Reflections (co-ed recreational division) was long and challenging journey. Both teams fought off worthy opponents on Sunday morning to advance to the championship game where the fresh top-seeded team awaited both of them in their respective divisions.

In the double elimination format, the Falcons dropped a game earlier in the playoffs and had to win all their games to get to the championship finale. The Falcons came from behind to defeat the Tamuning Typhoons by two points to set up the showdown with the Bombers. In the championship, the Bombers maintained a lead throughout the game over the weary Falcons. Ollie Bradley led the Bombers scoring 21 points. His offensive output earned him the Wendy’s Player of the Game.

Bomber teammates Brian Cooper (19 points) and Ledget Glover (15 points) helped preserve the perfect season. The Falcons’ Eric Reyes was the league’s leading scorer with 152 total points which had him averaging 19 points per game.

“MTM is a very aggressive, scrappy team and they were a good challenge for us. We always look forward to leagues like this; playing against local teams are a good challenge for us. The Falcons continued to play all the way till the buzzer sounded and never gave up,” said Bradley.

In the co-ed recreational division, team Justice also led from start to finish over the depleted Elegant Reflections squad. Francis Sunga and Roque Charfauros helped establish an early double digit lead and they never looked back.

Elegant Reflections battled a war just two hours before the championship game against team Ambros to advance to play Justice. Justice handed Elegant Reflections their previous playoff loss (59-58) on Friday to advance to the must-beat-twice winners bracket.

Team Justice wins the 2015 Coed Recreational League title.

Chris Ueki (7 points) and Christian Lopez (6 points) tried to ignite a comeback in the second half, but the Bandits missed open shots which caused them to fall behind by 15 points with seven minutes left in regulation.

AJ Aguon and Joey Reyes from team Justice secured the victory with points in the paint as they cruised to victory. Reyes earned the player of the game horns as his team dominated down the stretch.

Aaron Blaz from the Island Wolves was crowned as the co-ed recreation division scoring champion with 357 points, averaging 23.8 points per game. The ACAS group will host its annual Thanksgiving Hoopfest for youth divisions next month at the Tamuning gym. Registration ends on October 30th featuring 6 youth divisions (8-U coed, 10-U coed, 12-U coed, 14-U competitive, 16-U competitive and 18-U competitive). Interested clubs/organizations can find more information at www.guambasketball.com. Full uniforms are required for this league.

The Elegant Reflection Sticky Bandits captured 2nd place in the Coed Recreational Division.