Pastors Get The Best Of Politicians Again, At Peace On Street Basketball Tournament

The 14th edition of the Nelson Cooper "Peace on Da Streets" Basketball Classic sponsored by Furniture Plus came to a thrilling close on Saturday evening with championship action after a week of play at the Kendal Isaacs Gym.
The much anticipated Pastors versus Politicians game lived up to its billing.
Hundreds packed the stadium that was initially using just one side of the gym for seating but organizers were forced to open the second side of the seating area to accomodate the fans.
Once play got underway, for the second consecutive year the Pastors defeated the Politicians, this time 34-21.  Last year the score was 33-28 when when State Minister for Finance Zhivargo Lain led the Parliamentarians with 12 points.
This year, in the early going of the game that saw each half limited to 15 minutes running time, it took the Pastors just 30 seconds to score while the Politicians didn't get on the board until the eight-minute mark when Minister of National Security Tommy Turnquest scored the teams first point from the free throw line.
Although the Politicians were down by many at the half with the score 21-5, Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly Dr. Bernard Nottage serving as coach for the Politician, rallied his team and they responded well.
In the second half of the game, it seemed like a different team for the Politician.  They seemed to have gotten their second and third wind and said, they can accept a loss but not a blow out loss. 
Led by the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Desmond Bannister and Turnquest, the Politicians began to make a push and tightend their defense. Even though the Pastors would call it hacking.
Member of Parliament for Cat Island Phillip "Brave" Davis and Member of Parliament for Exuma Anthony Moss also contributed in the late game run.
On the Pastors side Carlos Reid was on fire. Asisted by Pastor Dave Burrows and a number of others in the team effort they kept the Politicians at arms length..
 In the end, the game was a crowd pleaser and got the attention of the youth of the Nation in the gym and those watching by television. The game provided many laughs as Turnquest, Bannister and Minister of State for Culture Charles Maynard all hit the floor at one point in the game in an effort to save the ball for their team.
Following the game, Turnquest said the message of peace got out to many of the youth in the country as they participated in the tournament.
"There is far too much crime in our country to date, and if we can get the message out that there are good wholesome sporting and recreation activities that our young people can engage in rather than criminal activities by playing this game, it’s all worth it,” said Turnquest.
Extremely pleased with the youth teams that played earlier on Saturday, Turnquest said it shows that a team can be formed in communities to take the kids off the streets and place them in such tournaments.
"Our Politicians team was made up of FNM and PLP playing together showing that we can work together for the good of moving ahead and have fun willing to work together.  We have our political differences, but this shows we can put those aside as you can see Dr. Nottage was our coach and we had a lot of fun," said Minister Turnquest.
Leader of the Opposition Perry Christie who sat on the bench with the Politicians said he really enjoyed the game noting thathe missed it lastyear.
Christie said he made a recommendation to coach Nottage that his team should practice at least twice before coming to play because it showed that they were not coordinated. 
As the tournament continues to grow with the crowd and sponsorship support, Christie said, "everything we can do towards getting young people to mix with those of us who appreciate that we have special work to do with them must be done. We have to create the right environment for them and all of it is very possible. This is a wonderful idea to bring young people out to look at Pastors and Members of Parliament as I believe a tournament like this should be taken to Grand Bahama another heavily populated Island so people there can experience the same feeling as we are," said Christie.
Organizer of the tournament Carlos Reid said they are very impressed with the tournament over the last few days as they have een a lot of talent.
"We started this tournament off with eight teams in the first year and now we are up to 37 teams and we give God thanks.  We only could anticipate what will take place next year when we celebrate our 15th year in the tournament", said Reid.
With the tournament designed to speak the message of peace to the young people, Reid said he believes the message got out.
"There are 37 sets of team jerseys that will be worn on Parks throughout New Providence, so the message will get out there", added Reid.
Commenting on the Pastors versus the Politicians game, Reid said it was a great game and they (Pastors) will be looking for another victory come 2010.

Championship Results
Open Men
Just Hooping  41
Monsters Inc  27

Pastors   34
Politicians  23

Celebrity
More 94  33
100 Jamz  26

Church
Temple Fellowship 29
Kemp Road  27

Under 18
Stingers  22
Rockets  20

Under 16
Courtesy  35
GT Warriors  33