CedarBridge Academy varsity coach Ricky Watts gave rave reviews of his team’s season after their title triumph in the Bermuda Secondary School Federation (BSSF) high school basketball league.

Watts’ side, who had lost the previous two finals in heartbreaking fashion, made good their pursuit of the elusive basketball title, beating Saltus 57-27 in the finals.

CedarBridge ended the season undefeated, sweeping aside all in their way in pre-season right up to the BSSF varsity title game.

“The children made it easy for me, their hunger and determination to win made coaching them a lot easier opposed to them not tuning in from the beginning of the season,” said Watts.

“I don’t deserve any of the credit for the season because it they really didn’t need to be told anything, and they came up against some good teams, but this is by far the best team have had so far.

“Our players started four years ago and have stayed together, lost back to back title games and then last year we lost a heartbreaker to Warwick Academy, so it wasn’t hard to motivate them to get what they felt was theirs.”

The motto of defence wins championships rang clear with the side, who used defence to spark their offence, winning each game by an average margin of 25.

The likes of Phillip Burgess, George Fubler, Kevon Castro and others were more than up to the task of staking a claim for the title.

Although CedarBridge had beaten Saltus twice already in the regular season, the coach made sure his players didn’t let their foot off the pedal prior to the clash.

“The finals was a good win over Saltus, they worked hard and the only thing I told them to do was to play and not look at the scoreboard,” said Watts.

“Their motivation came from within and defensively shutting some teams down to just 17 points while we scored roughly 60 per game, so the margin of victory reflects how intense the guys were.

“There weren’t any close games, the closest anyone got to us was by 25 points, that is how focused they were, Phillip Burgess, George Fubler, Kevon Castro and the boys lined up every night to win.

“We had beaten them twice already in the season and we didn’t want them to think it would a walk in the park, and I ended up taking them to the game just before tip off so they wouldn’t be in the mindframe that it’s an easy game.

“The was a lot of pageantry and screaming going on and I didn’t want them to get involved in the hype and to just play basketball.

“Our cheerleaders were at every game to give us support so I have to thank them, as well as teachers who came out to root for us.”