Per­sis­tance paid off as Va­len­cia Heat ral­lied to its 10th con­sec­u­tive win of the sea­son, with a 76-71 vic­to­ry over Mil­len­ni­um Bas­ket­ball Acad­e­my in the Su­per 10 Bas­ket­ball League (SBL) fi­nal at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Wright­son Road, on Tues­day night. The teams were even­ly matched through­out the en­counter but Heat, which has been on red hot form through­out the cam­paign, con­trolled the defin­ing over­time pe­ri­od af­ter the teams were dead­locked at 69-69 af­ter the four quar­ters.

It was Mil­len­ni­um, how­ev­er, which had the chance to cel­e­brate an out­right win as Chris­t­ian Arthur stepped up to the free-throw line af­ter be­ing award­ed three shots. He bagged the first and the third, which de­spite not be­ing enough to win the match, took it to the five min­utes of over­time. Heat cap­i­talised on the ex­tra ses­sion, outscor­ing its op­po­nents 7-2, prompt­ing cel­e­bra­tions from its sup­port­ers. The win was mas­ter­mind­ed by a strong dis­play from Mick­hail Williams and Ivan Williams, who took 20 and 11 points, re­spec­tive­ly, for Va­len­cia. Team cap­tain Joel Gon­za­les helped out with 10 points. Jonathan Hamil­ton scored a match-high 22 points for Mil­len­ni­um.

Bri­an Chase draws first blood

In a clash of the two best teams this sea­son, BLINK Bri­an Chase Acad­e­my edged Po­lice Sports Club 58-56, in a sur­prise win in game one in the best-in-five Big-Four fi­nal se­ries in the lat­er match. Po­lice, which has been the suc­cess sto­ry of the sea­son, be­gan as favourites to take the Big-Four ti­tle af­ter win­ning the knock­out ti­tle and a strong run in the league which saw them take nine wins out of 10 match­es. Po­lice, how­ev­er, was set back af­ter a strong per­for­mance from the Bri­an chase team which con­trolled the first two pe­ri­ods 17-8 and 27-14.

Bri­an Chase slowed con­sid­er­ably in the third quar­ter as it saw its lead re­duced to 40-38 by a ral­ly­ing Po­lice team. Po­lice, through for­mer na­tion­al play­er Tres­sia Brath­waite, did well to lev­el the scores (49-49) with on­ly two min­utes left to play af­ter trail­ing for al­most the en­tire en­counter. The two teams again trad­ed bas­kets un­til Bri­an Chase took a three-point lead at 56-53. Brath­waite, again, lev­elled the scores at 56-all with an­oth­er clin­i­cal three-point­er but Bri­an Chase cen­tre Afeisha Noel had the fi­nal word when she gath­ered a re­bound and tucked in a lay-up with 10 sec­onds left to play. Po­lice was un­able to snatch a last gasp bas­ket as they were left to im­prove for game two. The win­ning team was led by Noel, who sealed 19 points, nine re­bounds and five steals. Al­li­son Young took 12 points and 17 re­bounds for a strong dou­ble-dou­ble, fol­lowed by Nneka Jones. She chipped in with 11 points and four re­bounds.

For Po­lice, lead­ing scor­er of the com­pe­ti­tion, for­ward Rhon­da John-Davis again led all scor­ers on the day with 25 points, four re­bounds and six steals, fol­lowed by Leslie-Ann Bac­quain with 13 points and five re­bounds. Brath­waite fin­ished on 10 points for Po­lice. The sec­ond se­ries match will be played tonight at the same venue from 7 pm. Fol­low­ing soon af­ter at 9 pm, will be the open­er of the Men's best-of-sev­en se­ries fi­nal be­tween Petro Jazz and De­fence Force.

Fix­tures

To­day

Po­lice v Bri­an Chase Acad­e­my, 7 pm

Petro Jazz v De­fence Force, 9 pm.