Gillian Brazier tournament returns

The Gillian Brazier Basketball Shootout is set for a return this weekend following a two-year hiatus.
The tournament which is organised by the Concerned Parents /Teachers Sports Associat-ion (CPTSA), will host only three teams and is set to run from April 14 to 18.
Canada’s Juel of Ontario will face two local clubs Wings and Purple Heart, as the teams battle for supremacy in the women’s league at the JSC basketball complex.
Chief organiser Lucaso Brumant, explained that the annual tournament was forced to take a break because it was difficult to attract teams from both outside and within Antigua & Barbuda.
“It would have been the 14th annual Gillian Brazier Basketball Shootout and that year we had one team from Canada that was coming and then the other teams that were supposed to come did not come again. The only team we had here in Antigua at the time was the Wings team and you couldn’t have a tournament with just two teams so we decided to forgo that. Later on, Gillian Brazier passed away and now we are trying to revive the tournament,” he said. 
The tournament kicks off on Friday with the two local teams going head to head in the first game. On Saturday night, Wings face Juel of Ontario while on Sunday, Purple Heart and Juel of Ontario lock horns at 5 pm.
Asked if he hopes the tournament will grow into what it once was, Brumant said the task will be a difficult one.
“Now you have the Caribbean basketball association [CBA] with all these female tournaments so teams are now opting to go to those tournaments instead of coming to us. We were the pillar of female basketball in the region so teams used to come to us because there was no other avenue,” he said.
The competition will be complemented with a basketball clinic for players between ages seven and 18 on Saturday and Sunday. The clinic will be conducted by coach Fergy Neves of Juel of Ontario from 8:30 am to 12:00 noon at the YMCA Sports Complex.