National Finals Game 4: San Ramon 78 Sanatura 71

An overflowing crowd awaited the fourth game of the National Finals in the San Ramon gym last Friday night. Our leading scorer Michael Jackson watched helplessly from the sidelines while serving out his one-game suspension for striking Greg Platter at the end of Game 3. Henry Martinez started in his place and tallied 19 points, but it wasn't quite enough to pull out the win on the road.

National Finals Game 3: Sanatura 74 San Ramon 80

After a tough win last Friday night, our team was back at the Gimnasio Nacional Sunday night for the third game of the Finals. Up two games in the best of five series, the biggest threat to our title hopes was complacency; as we all know two is not the same as three.

National Finals Game 2: San Ramon 77 Sanatura 85

The San Ramon gym overflowed with delirious fans eager to support their team as the series moved to San Ramon. The place was packed an hour before tipoff as fans waved thunder sticks in anticipation of the game.

Similar to the first game, both teams started trading baskets early on, like two prize fighters feeling each other out. Dave Millinier was effective early on inside while Jefney Anderson got off to a fast start for San Ramon. We started to put together a few scoring runs, only to be answered by mini runs from San Ramon. As the minutes wore on in the second quarter we carved out a six point lead, only to see Kay Martinez hit an off balance jump shot as the halftime buzzer sounded.

Finals Game 1: Sanatura 82 San Ramon 75

ARBA San Ramon beat six-time defending champ in a double overtime thriller at San Ramon on Sunday in the third and deciding game of Clausura. Forty-eight hours later they had to lace up their sneakers for the first game of the National Finals against our team. Talk about an emotional roller-coaster on a short turnaround.

Meanwhile, our team has been trying to recover mentally and physically from the disappointment of losing to Barva in the semi-finals in the deciding game. We put in some good practice sessions last week, sweating out those demons, trying to get ready for this series.

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.

Clausura Semi-Finals: Sanatura vs Barva

Game 1: Franklyn Ferguson goes up against our interior defense.

Work has gotten in the way of blogging the last few weeks. We faced off against Barva in the semi-finals of Clausura. The first two games were tight affairs. Barva won the first game in San Joaquin de Flores. We won the second game in Escazu. Barva won the series in the third deciding game by an ample margin to move on to the Clausura Finals where they will face ARBA San Ramon.

We are left licking our wounds, waiting for the winner in the National Finals. San Ramon and Barva are squaring off today to determine the winner.

Here are some pictures from that semi final series.