Ker­ry Mc Mil­lan poured in 29 points to keep De­fence Force alive in the Men's First Di­vi­sion best-of-three semi­fi­nal se­ries in the North Zone Bas­ket­ball League at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo on Tues­day night.

The shoot­ing guard led the sol­dier/sailor com­bi­na­tion team to an 89-79 vic­to­ry over Cale­do­nia Clip­pers in game two to lev­el the se­ries 1-1. Clip­pers won game one 81-77 last Sat­ur­day.

Pro­duc­ing for De­fence Force of­fen­sive­ly al­so were Jamille King with 18 and Steven Lewis with 12 in a match their team led from the jump-off. The army/coast guard unit com­mand­ed the first quar­ter 32-16 and main­tained a 12-point (44-32) ad­van­tage at the half.

The "Teteron Boys" led by as many as 18 mid­way through the third quar­ter but Clip­pers, de­ter­mined to close off the se­ries in two games, kept the deficit to 15 (69-54) at the close of the third pe­ri­od.

The Clip­pers team, boost­ed by the likes of post play­ers Shawn Lawrence (24) and Miguel Williams (12), showed some im­prove­ment in the fourth and fi­nal ses­sion, outscor­ing their op­po­nent 25-20. Lawrence scored 12 of his to­tal in the fi­nal 10 min­utes for the Clip­pers but it was too late.

Clip­pers had two oth­er play­ers scor­ing in dou­ble-fig­ures in shoot­ing guard Adri­an Joseph and for­ward Kirk Bap­tiste, with each net­ting 10, but it was all in vain.

They will seek to re­group for the third and de­cid­ing match on Sat­ur­day at the same venue from 8 pm. The win­ner will meet ei­ther Strak­er Nets or Bri­an Chase Acad­e­my, who last night were bat­tling in game two. Strak­er Nets were at the time lead­ing the se­ries 1-0 af­ter their 97-81 vic­to­ry in game one last Sat­ur­day.

Re­sults

Clip­pers 79 (Shawn Lawrence 24, Miguel Williams 12, Adri­an Joseph 10, Kirk Bap­tiste 10) vs De­fence Force 89 (Ker­ry Mc Mil­lan 29, Jamille King 18, Steven Lewis 12). Quar­ter scores: 1st 32-16; 2nd. 44-32; 3rd. 69-54 (All in favour of De­fence Force)

Re­sults

Sun­day

Women's Di­vi­sion

Po­lice 45 vs Bri­an Chase 44

Di­vi­sion Two

Game one: Shak At­tack 82 vs De­fence Force 71