NEPTUNE broke the tie at the top of the Budweiser basketball Superleague with a 90-80 home win over Star of the Sea on Saturday night in Cork. The clear victory for the champion team of the 1980s left them the only unbeaten club after five rounds of matches.
Both sides held sizeable leads in the first hall, at the end of which Star led 42-38. Neptune saw an early seven point advantage turn into an eight point deficit in five minutes in that opening period.
The second half saw improved performances by Neptune guard Steve McCarthy and forward Gordon Fitzgerald. Under the boards, the defensive rebounding of Terry Strickland and the inside offence of Mario Mullins also helped the Cork side take command. Mullins ended the game as top scorer with 33, while Strickland added 19.
In another very significant game, the defending league champions, Tralee, dropped four points off the pace after suffering an 87-85 home defeat to injury hit Killester, for whom Prentis Philips was top scorer on 24 points. Meanwhile, Delta scored the biggest Superleague win of the weekend with a 100-69 victory over Marian.
In women's Division One, the last three seconds of Naomh Mhuire's 61-60 victory over Meteors were filled with incident. Mhuire, who led by five points at half time, were 58-48 in front with just 90 seconds remaining. Meteors whittled away at the lead and a Karen Hennessy basket with just three seconds to go left Mhuire just 61-58 in front. As Meteors harried their opponents, Mhuire delayed before in bounding the ball so the referee stopped the game to repeat the process.
There were heated objections to the decision from the Mhuire bench and a technical was awarded against their coach Pat McKenna. Hennessy then scored from both free throws to make it 61-60 and with the resultant possession, Angie McNally almost stole the game for Meteors with a three point attempt which bounced off the backboard and rim before missing the basket.
