Grecia 83 Escazu 94

After a two week hiatus, it was time to get back to the court for the beginning of Clausura. Costa Rican basketball has this funky setup where the winner of the Apertura tournament plays the winner of the Clausura tournament in a National Final. If the same team wins both, they are automatically the national champions, a feat San Ramon accomplished last year in a near-perfect season. Its a format that they have borrowed from soccer. One of the positives is that the mid-season reset gives teams new hope to stay in the hunt. This year, Ferreteria Brenes Barva won the Apertura tournament. Now we have several teams that hope to win the Clausura tournament, including Barva so they can win things outright.


That reset allows teams to make adjustments. Our big adjustment is the incorporation of Amaurys Ripoll into our squad. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Ripoll has lived in Costa Rica long enough to be a nationalised Costa Rican. Amaurys played for us as a foreigner last year. We had been waiting on his paperwork to clear all during Apertura, which was tough for Amaurys, to practice not knowing what your status will be is a tough task. His papers cleared just after the deadline; we actually had his citizenship before but there was one more document necessary for his registration.

Amaurys Ripoll

Our first game of Clausura was against Grecia. The schedule flips automatically, so this time our season opener was at home.  Our games against Grecian were very close in Apertura. Their veteran squad has the capacity to score a lot of points. Going into the game I was a little concerned about integrating Ripoll into our rotation without messing up chemistry. Thing is the season has so little games that you almost need to force things and hope they work out.

Herny Forester and Michael Jackson

By bringing in Amaurys, we needed to make adjustments to our rotation. for this game we went with a smaller lineup, moving Michael Jackson to the 4 spot. The first half was an up and down affair. every time it looked like we were set to make a run, Grecian would answer with a big basket or we would make a careless turnover.  We finished the first half with 13 turnovers and clinging to a one point lead.

In the third quarter we played around with our rotation a bit, putting both Amaurys and Michael on the wing. Amir Alvarado had a strong quarter for Grecia, keeping the score in the quarter close. Then right before the end of the third quarter, Diego Loria got called for a foul on Henry Martinez, and then got called for a double foul and a technical foul; three fouls on the same play, though to be honest the double foul should have been called on one of our other players! San Ramon got three free throws and the ball, a three pointer that Henry converted. Suddenly, Grecia closed the quarter up by five points.
Michael Jackson and Nick Leon took over in the final quarter. We erased Grecia's lead in the first two possessions and never looked back. Clifford Smith hit some long threes to break the game wide open and we never looked back, cruising to a comfortable lead.

Clifford Smith and Henry Martinez squaring off. 

Notes

• Michael had his first career double that didn't include turnovers with 26 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists. Amaurys Ripoll added 16 points, with Nick Leon chipping in 15 points. 
• Amir Alvarado had 26 points while Korey Fisher added 16 points and 7 assists. 

Super fan in the stands.