Ty Little leads Pontes to the Championships....

After all these weeks of playing games in the Steelton Midget basketball league, Coach Calvin always said "I wonder how good we could be if the whole team would just show up..." ....  Well, on this night, he had his entire team and they were fired up to play against one of the top offensive players in the middle school Casey Caruso and his Albert Hi team.....

Pontes jumped out to an early lead as they got early 1st quarter contributions from each player...  5th grade big guy Alin Jones hit a nice turn around jumper, his sister Ayla had a strong move to the basket...  Tiara Little knocked down a jumper and Tyrece Little had a few buckets of his own....   It clearly looked as though Pontes had full control of the game taking a 16 - 6 lead after the first quarter....

During the 2nd quarter, Albert Hi came storming back with Caruso finding his team mates for easy baskets....   Pontes had some early baskets but lost rhythm once Tyrece Little picked up his 2nd foul.....  That's when Albert Hi went on a 10 - 2 run to close the half and cut the lead down to three with big contributions from Tykeir Barrheal as he scored 10 of his 20 points that quarter cutting the score to 28 - 25....

Third quarter is where Caruso got hot and scored 13 of his teams 15 points in the 3rd quarter while he single handedly tried to win this game...  Pontes had two guys on him and he found a way to free up just enough to get his shot off.....  so going into the 4th quarter, the lead was down to one for Pontes and they looked worried....

The 4th quarter is where Tyrece Little woke up and began to play more aggressive....  He picked up on Caruso just to make him work a little harder and he also attacked the basket more...  After scoring 17pts through the first 3 quarters, he tacked on another 9 points in the 4th quarter to try and keep the team alive....   Alin Jones was a rebounding monster and he found the open guys with nice outlet passes....  Tiara Little played outstanding defense and Jai Burney hit a clutch 3 pointer to tie the game up.....

This game went into overtime folks................   


With the lack of bench support for Albert Hi, Tykeir and Casey fouled out and it seemed to be over for Albert Hi...  Somehow they managed to tie the game up after Ty Little saved a ball from going out of bounds, but threw it to the other team right under their basket....  Big John layed it up and the game went into a second overtime......


Pontes was too much for them as Tyrece Little scored 14 more points between the two overtime periods and pulling out the win 73 - 65 for their first championship in 5 years....

Tyrece Little finished the game with 40 points, 8 rebs, 4 assist and 3 steals, Tiara Little chipped in with 12 points and 3 steals, Alin Jones scored 4 pts and snagged a season high 16 rebs, Ayla Jones scored 4 pts, 7 rebs and 2 blocks while playing great defense on Big John....  Donovin Medina and Jai Burney did a great job in help side defense on Caruso although he was a tough matchup for everyone....

Caruso ended the game with 29 points and he got them all types of ways....  The kid can knock down shots from 24 feet out and he does it off the dribble....

Tyrece was a major factor in this game, especially from the line as he hit 15 - 22 free throws for the game in route to a career high....

Pontes had a tough road going through a 12 - 0 Naples team and then the 2nd place Albert Hi but that's what March Madness is all about....