National Finals Preview

ARBA SAN RAMON celebrating the Clausura title.

As I've written before, the Costa Rican season is structured into two mini seasons. You have a winner for Apertura and Clausura portions of the season. Unless that happens to be the same team (as Barva did five of six times by my count), those winners meet in a National Final in a best of five series. We won the Apertura portion of the tourney, while San Ramon won the Clausura portion.

Game 1 Tuesday, August 14th Gimnasio Nacional
Game 2 Friday, August 17th San Ramon
Game 3 Sunday, August 19th Gimnasio Nacional
Game 4 Friday, August 24th San Ramon
Game 5 Sunday, August 26 TBD

Our team is finally at full strength. Actually, that's not 100% correct. Sebastian Lacayo is serving a two game suspension for arguing in Game 3 of the semifinals against Barva; I wonder how long the suspension would have been if he had actually done something. Aside from that suspension, we are mostly healthy for the first time in the Clausura tournament. Henry Martinez just got his mask to protect his facial injury.

San Ramon has a very skilled team; they have three players who have played D1 ball in the US, more than any other team in Costa Rica. They have the most rugged front court with Daniel Simmons, Jefney Anderson and high-flying Jerson Harris. When Darell St. Rose went down in the playoffs of Apertura, they brought in Greg Platter (Guard, Long Beach State) who's become one of the league's best players. Rounding out the lineup on the wings they have Kay Martinez and Amaurys Ripool, two long multifaceted players who can score in a variety of ways. They also have two of the league's best young players in Luis and Isaac Conejo, sons of famous Costa Rican goalkeeper Luis Gabelo Conejo. And to round things out, they have several players on the bench who can come in and play key minutes and hit big shots..

San Ramon has become the toughest place to play in the league. Their crowd is loud and boisterous, making noise the entire game. They've done such a great job of fostering community support (much kudos to Franklin). If the teams in this league did half as good a job, this would be a much better league overall.

Should be a fun series.