Le Mont Saint are crowned champions

Le Mont Saint came from behind to beat their big rivals Skipton 61-58 and be crowned champions in a games which mirrored the league season in that there was little to choose between the sides throughout.

With his LMS captain’s hat on, Pete Beausire said he was ‘over the moon’ to secure top spot, but he was also a happy man from his Guernsey Basketball president’s perspective too.

‘It shows our draft works for us as an association,’ he said.

‘It was a bold move at the time, and I think it’s our fifth year of doing it this way, but it has worked.

‘Unfortunately Chargers have had a couple of games where they have not had a [full] squad due to injuries, but we have only had two real blow-outs out of all the games played in Division One, which is crazy really.

‘It’s good for Guernsey basketball and good for us going into the Island Games because the guys are used to playing in close games.’

Although Skipton captain Aaron Walden was once again reduced to a coaching role due to injury, it was his side who got off to the brighter start in Friday’s encounter with Matt Sawbridge continuing his outstanding form by reaching doubles figures inside the first quarter, which ended with Skipton 22-15 ahead.

‘It did not start the best for us,’ said Beausire, whose team were coached by Dave Sauvarin in the absence of James Tracey, while on the playing front they were without Dan Marriott and another of their Island players was forced into making a late entrance.

‘Jason Hooper’s plane landed from Manchester at 8.45pm so he had to come straight from the airport and he missed the whole first quarter.

‘The game started a bit nervy. Everyone knew it was basically the title decider and so they did not want to get drawn into early fouls or taking early shots.

‘Both teams’ defence was probably the highest level it has been all season and we just matched each other basket for basket most of the game.’

By half-time the Skipton lead had been trimmed to four points and LMS they edged ahead during a third quarter in which they restricted their opponents to just seven points.

Going into the final stanza, a relatively low-scoring contest was nicely poised at 45-43 and Skipton had the better of the early exchanges of the fourth to retake the lead and open another four-point gap heading into the last five minutes.

But LMS responded well with Ashly Ward hitting an important three-pointer before the Beausire brothers scored the next six points between them to take their side into a five-point advantage.

That allowed the blues to manage the clock in the final couple of minutes and although the gap was briefly reduced to two, LMS were able to run down the time with a degree of assurance.

‘We were four down at half-time, but you genuinely could not call it for most of the game,’ Beausire said.

‘No-one ever got on a run as such, which made it more tense and I have to say I thought Fez [Adam Farish] and Katie [Cochrane] controlled the game really well because they knew it was a big game so wanted to let us play, but they did not take flak from anyone.

‘The highlight for me was Mike [Beausire] versus Nico [Robinson] – the clash of the big guys both at it in the post. They marked each other really hard but it was a great contest.

‘From our point of view, Ash Ward controlled the game really well, but by the spread of points you can see we were very much focused on a squad game.

‘For Skipton, “Sawby” once again and Nico were excellent and did a lot of the donkey work. Obviously, Aaron still being out injured is a massive miss for them as a player and a leader on court.’

Ward (12), Max Hamon (12), Pete Beausire (13) and Mike Beausire (16) all reached double figures for LMS while Sawbridge’s 21 points led the way for Skipton with Robinson contributing 17.

Women’s title report to follow