Straker Nets and Detour Shak Attack on Thursday night booked their spots in the Men's Premier Division " Final Four" competition of the Barry Stewart Basketball League, with victories at the Maloney Indoor Sports Arena.
The Nets looked to point guard Jeffrey Harris to come good in their second match of the "Big Eight" competition as he did in the opening win against Maloney Pacers (78-64) and he responded with a match-high 18 points, to pilot his team to a 74-65 win over a determined Police team.
The police officers led in the first two quarters but fell away, later on, to suffer its second straight loss, ending any chance of moving on to the next round.
Backed by post player Dextroy Manswell (17), Police jumped to an early lead 20-11 in the first quarter. With support from forward Wesley Vincent (13) and centre Don Wilkinson (12), the police team remained in charge into the second quarter, leading by just four (38-34) points.
It was on the resumption of the second half that Straker, led by Harris with assistance from guard Sadiki Guerra (10) and post player Allister Martin (10), started to seriously attack their team's deficit and was rewarded for their effort, gaining a 57-50 advantage at the close of the fourth quarter.
Police, who was hoping to make amends for its opening loss to Shak Attack (75-55), rallied against the lone unbeaten team thus far in the competition almost matching them offensively in the fourth and final quarter, 15-17 but still fell short by nine points.
In the second match of the night, Kurt "Koto" Christian connected two free throws late, to resign Pacers to its second consecutive loss in a low-scoring affair in the second phase of the competition. Christian lifted Shak Attack to a narrow three-point (50-47) win to cement a spot in the best of three "Big Four" series.
With under 15 seconds to go, Shak Attack was up by one when Christian was fouled and went to the line, hitting both shots to put his team up by three.
Pacers had possession of the ball with a chance to tie the score and push the match into overtime but a wayward pass bounced off Yannik Tappin's leg and went out of bounds, ending any chance of his team making a comeback.
The final "Big Eight" round-robin match in Group A between Straker and Shak Attack will determine which team will fill first and second spots moving forward. Jump-ball is at 8 pm at the Jean Pierre Complex in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain following the opening affair between Police and Pacers at 6 pm.
Due to bad weather yesterday, last night's second round of matches in group B was postponed to Tuesday in Maloney, from 7 pm.