Eclair and Golden-Star qualified for the next round of the French Cup, Martinique zone

The women's final between the Eclair and the Golden-Star took a while to “start”the two teams seeming to suffer the challenge of this final. As a result, a lot of technical waste and clumsiness; the 1^is quarter-time ends with a score of 18 to 8 in favor of the Eclair.

The following 10 minutes saw the Éclair go it alone, the Goldenists being unable to react and follow the pace imposed by the Pelopidas, Mayaud, Bercy and Boucand to name but a few. The Eclair bench is complete and the rotations of the technical staff have made it possible to rule out the Foyalaises. The latter only scored 3 points in this second quarter, half-time was whistled with a score of 44 to 11, the Lightning hit hard.

The second half saw the Éclair accentuate its domination, leaving only crumbs to the Goldenists in total lack of success. Laura Mayaud's gang – the captain of the Eclair – finally won with a 52-point difference. 79 to 27 on the scoreboard, the Salesians took their opponents by the throat.

The game plan was to attack this match hard to make it easy for us… it's respecting the opponent to play as seriously as possible. The objectives are clearly stated for the season so we must be rigorous until the end, this evening we did the job but there are still small things to correct. We will continue to work.

Pascale Tourbillon, assistant coach of Eclair

For the Golden-Star, it was an evening without, as Gilles Verdan, the Golden girls' coach, recognizes, a test match which should allow the players to work to hope for a better tomorrow.

It's a team under construction and some of them are discovering what it's like to play in a final and some are also discovering basketball in Martinique. That's a lot of elements but I think there was still pressure, poor management of emotion and then this challenge without experience played a bad trick on us. It has to serve a match like that, it can only help us improve, we have to learn the lessons to move forward.

Kathy Ruster, Golden-Star assistant coach

In the men's final, between the Golden-Lion, club of the Regional division and the Golden-Star which plays champion in pre-national, the match was intense.

Memories of the time of the big posters between “the 2 Golden”, came to the surface and the public came to attend the meeting and support the two teams.

The Goldenists from Saint-Joseph and those from Fort-de-France fought a great battle, surrendering blow for blow. The score is 32 to 30 in favor of Foyalais at half-time.

The last 20 minutes were fierce. If the Foyalais took a few steps ahead, they never really pushed aside Emile Fourlin's protégés.

And in the last quarter, Richard Dumont, the captain of the Golden-Star and his teammates, felt the Josephine breath until the end. But the West Indies-Guyana champion won with a score of 76 to 67.

We didn't run, we didn't defend and in attack it was messy. To explain it, there is this lack of training, we are not yet ready in fact. We're not going to lie to each other, the French Cup is not one of our objectives. That said, we have 2 weeks to prepare for the next round against the Guadeloupean team.

Wilhelm Célestine, coach of the Golden Star BB

In the Josephin camp, no regrets against the Foyalais ogre but the Josephin collective wants to retain this great evaluation against the Golden-Star.

The young people wanted it a lot. We lacked a little bit, the lack of experience, but we will continue to work quietly because we are in the lower division. The objective is to return to the elite of Martinique basketball. But tonight, I am very proud of my team.

Emile Fourlin, coach of the Golden Lion

On November 23, in Rivière-Salée, the Eclair and the Golden-Star will compete in a new round of the French Cup. They will be opposed to the winners of the French Cup Guadeloupe zone. Then the West Indian winners will face their counterparts from Guyana two weeks later (December 7) in Guyana.