Dec. 29, 2008 — Some of the top athletes from Antilles' School's past and present faced off over the weekend at the Mark C. Marin Center on St. Thomas, playing in the first-ever alumni vs. varsity basketball games.
"This is an idea we should have had in place awhile back," said Charlie Davis, Antilles School's athletic director. "It's a great idea, we want to get our alumni involved in the athletic program, it's a good way this time of year for people to come out and see old friends, share experiences and have some fun. It's a great opportunity to get old friends together and see if they still got it, and give our varsity teams a chance to play, and to recognize the contributions of those athletes that have made contributions to the school in the past."
The first game had the alumni girls taking on this year's varsity girls' team, and for the first quarter the alums stood toe to toe with the varsity, only trailing by one, 8-7. But from the second quarter on, it seemed that either the alumni ran out of gas or the varsity girls were just getting warmed up in the first quarter, because the varsity picked up the pace, while also shutting out the alumni to take a 21-7 lead at half.
The second half was more of the same, as the varsity continued its onslaught behind Victoria Hamilton's 15 points. The team went on to a 34-19 victory. Chantall Cooper led the alumni girls with 7 points, followed by Nicole Wheatley with 4.
Davis called the game early on.
"Well, looking at the girls' side, I think that maybe our varsity girls have an edge there, and looking at the teams, and I see some girls that haven't played in a while," he said before the match started.
Following was the men's game, which also went according to Davis' predictions: "On the men's side, the alumni have already been talking smack about what they're going to do to our varsity boys, so I think there's gong to be some good playing on our men's side, and I think that the girls will have some fun as well."
Play was pretty tight throughout the game, and the scores were tied at the end of the first, second and third quarters. With 3.3 seconds left in the game, the varsity found themselves down by three, 50-47. Inbounding the ball from under their own basket, varsity's full-court pass was picked off at the end to allow the alumni to hold on for the win.
Gerard Wiley finished with 14 points for the alums, followed by J.P. deJongh with 13 and David "Chicken" LaRochelle with 8. For the varsity, Makenzie Shaw and Andrew Casazza finished with 11 points, followed by Matt Cook with 10.
Davis said he hopes an alumni-varsity basketball game will be played every year, and he plans to involve the school's volleyball program in the annual event.
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