By Andrew Coakley

FN Sports Editor

The Geneva Rutherford Girls' Basketball Tournament is not officially called a national basketball tournament for girls, but it functions in that capacity.

Known as the biggest school tournament for girls basketball players, the Geneva Rutherford Tourna-ment is quickly becoming "The" tournament in which girls with the potential, talent and determination to obtain a college scholarship will be able to do so.

Perhaps that explains why this year's tournament will attract hundreds of primary, junior and senior female players from around the country. There is expected to be more than 20 teams coming to Grand Bahama for this tournament.

This year's tournament will be held February 10-13 at the St. Georges gymnasium.

It is expected that five of the top 10 rated girls teams will be playing in this tournament. They include C.R. Walker, University, G.H.S., St. John's (all out of Nassau) and Agape out of Abaco.

"Moon" admits that after officiating at the recent Fr. Marcian Peters Basketball Tournament in Nassau, he's convinced that schools coming in from Nassau will be hard to beat at this year's tournament.

"I want the schools in Grand Bahama and those out of Abaco to brace themselves for a very competitive tournament in senior girls action," said McPhee.

"As far as the junior girls go, Briland will be in town, and in my opinion, they have one of the best junior girls teams in the country. They will be very competitive in that division.

"So, we will be expecting a very strong tournament."

Sharon "The General" Storr, scheduling director for the tournament says he's expecting to see some great female basketball at this year's event. As a referee in the league out of Nassau, Storr has also seen what Nassau has to bring and agrees with "Moon" that the tournament will turn out to be extremely competitive.

"When we look at the competitive level of this tournament, we felt that it would be best to have the travelling team play more than two games," said Storr.

"With that under consideration, we decided to have three divisions in all categories, and it will take on a round robin format, where everyone in each division will play each other. That will be followed by pool play, where the first play team will get a bye and the second and third place teams will play each other in order to move on, followed by the championship."

Storr noted that this tournament is important for the development of female basketball in the country.

In fact, coach "Moon" McPhee noted that without the Geneva Rutherford basketball tournament, girls in high schools in The Bahamas would only play less than 10 games in one season.

Compare that to the 40 or more games that high school boys play in any given season.

"This is sad, because it does not help to develop the sport among our girls," said McPhee.

"What we are trying to do with this tournament and the primary school tournament is give these groups of athletes more opportunities to play and develop their skills.

"But it also depends on the girls and how bad they want to play."

Sponsoring this year's tournament will be the Ministry of Sports and FOCOL, Port Authority, VOPAK, GB Shipyard and others.