Neptune in sight of title as chasing pack falters

This may well be remembered as the weekend when Neptune clinched the ESB Superleague title. Yesterday they strolled past Killester 96-57 at the Neptune Stadium, adding to Friday's win over Waterford, and they now move eight points clear at the top of the table.

It may be a little too early for the chasing teams to lose all heart, but with no let up in Neptune's winning form it's hard to see how any of them can surpass the Cork team at this stage. Once again they had their opponents in real trouble from the start, with American Jon D'Orlando shooting seven first quarter points to leave them 24-14 ahead.

Rasuel McKune and Ricardo Leonard then turned up the heat even more, and trailing by 20 points at half-time, there was no way back for the Dublin team. Yet again McKune ended up the top scorer with 27 points, with Leonard the next best on 18.

Reinforcing this significant weekend for Neptune was the defeats of their three nearest rivals, the most significant being that of defending champions Star of the Sea. They hosted Esat Telecom Demons on Saturday but ended up losing 100-88.

This result means that Star remain part of a three-way tie for second place, as do Kerry Spring Killarney following their 71-68 loss away to UCD-Marian.

An impressive 104-92 home win for St Vincent's over Denny Notre Dame moves them up to complete the second-placed trio. This also gave Vincent's the much-needed momentum in their chase on Neptune while at the same time forcing Notre Dame into the tie for third.

There was little to separate the two Dublin sides after the first quarter, with Vincent's edging in front 22-20. Notre Dame fought back to level the score with just three minutes to go to the half, but incredibly Stephen McGuirk then shot a succession of three-pointers to leave Vincent's 56-43 ahead at the break. Brian Tonkovich, top scorer on 30 points, made sure Vincent's were never in trouble again as they controlled the last two quarters.

Elsewhere, there was a desperate battle at the University of Limerick to separate Burger King Limerick and Dungannon. Both sides are struggling to get into a mid-table finish, and it took a period of overtime before Limerick prevailed 105-92.

Brad Wedel's three-pointer kept Dungannon in the game with just 10 seconds of normal time remaining, but there was no real contest after that.