Strak­er Nets and Po­lice won game one of the re­spec­tive Big Four semi­fi­nal se­ries to move clos­er to the fi­nal of the Open Men’s Di­vi­sion of the North Zone League’s (NZL) “Re­vival” Bas­ket­ball In­vi­ta­tion­al at the St Paul Street Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty on Fri­day night.

In the first match, Po­lice de­feat­ed Cale­do­nia Clip­pers, 59-48 to go up 1-0 in the se­ries in the league pow­ered by the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Trio Kern Alex­is, Fab­rice Fish­er, and Steve Mc­Sween were the main scor­ers for the po­lice team. Alex­is led with 12 points while Fish­er and Mc­Sween, each added 10.

Po­lice held a nar­row lead, 11-9, at the end of the first quar­ter but Clip­pers man­aged to outscore them in the sec­ond pe­ri­od to tie the scores at 20 at half­time.

On the re­sump­tion, Po­lice bat­tled back and re­gained the lead, by eight points (45-37), head­ing in­to the fourth quar­ter. In the fi­nal pe­ri­od though, the Clip­pers team was un­able to ral­ly back and had to set­tle for the 11-point loss.

For Clip­pers, Steven “Lighter” Lewis scored a team-high 12 points in a los­ing ef­fort.

Lat­er, De­fence Force dropped game one, 92-44, against a pow­er­ful Strak­er Nets team in the lop­sided sec­ond Big Four semi­fi­nal match of the dou­ble-head­er.

Lead­ing the way of­fen­sive­ly was Sadi­ki Guer­ra, who scored a match-high 22 points for Strak­er. He had sup­port from Tris­ton Ben­jamin and Mau­rice Fran­cis with 16 and 15, re­spec­tive­ly.

Strak­er led at the end of each quar­ter – 35-14 in the first, 53-22 at half­time, and 80-33 in the third – be­fore cruis­ing to the huge 48-point win.

Ker­ry McMil­lan was the top scor­er for the army/coast guard com­bi­na­tion team with 16 points.

Game two match­es in both se­ries was sched­uled for last night. Big Four ac­tion con­tin­ues on the week­end.

Fri­day

Open Men’s Di­vi­sion (Game 1)

Po­lice 59 (Kern Alex­is 12, Fab­rice Fish­er 10, Steve Mc­Sween 10) vs Clip­pers 48 (Steven Lewis 12). Quar­ter scores: 1st 11-9 (Po­lice), 2nd 20-20, 3rd 45-37 (Po­lice).

Strak­er Nets 92 (Sadi­ki Guer­ra 22, Tris­ton Ben­jamin 16, Mau­rice Fran­cis 15) vs De­fence Force 44 (Ker­ry McMil­lan 16). Quar­ter scores: 1st 35-14, 2nd 53-22, 3rd 80-33 (All in favour of Nets)