Waterford keep pace with leaders

Not for the first time this season, Waterford lived very dangerously in a league match yesterday before prevailing by a single score to keep pace with Superleague leaders Star of the Sea.

Star made sure of retaining outright leadership in the campaign by winning easily, 94-74, in Sligo on Saturday and that placed extreme pressure on Waterford to win away to 1997 Champions Neptune yesterday.

Up the final minute of the game in Cork, it seemed likely that Neptune would win as they had led for almost the entire match. They were 41-36 ahead at half-time but entering the final minute, the match was tied.

With 57 seconds remaining, Eric Blair put Waterford ahead only for Harold Joiner to level at 72-all with less than half a minute remaining. Waterford's winning score then came with only two seconds remaining through a lay-up by Dean Kavanagh.

That success keeps Waterford within striking distance of Star at the head of the table and if Michael Evans's squad win their game in hand, it will be level again at the top. Third place is occupied by Blue Demons who defeated St Vincent's 81-76 on Saturday night in Gurranebraher to keep alive their outside hopes of catching either Waterford or Star.

St Vincent's led by six points at half-time and looked favourites to win, but a combination of a tight defence and some fine shooting by both the league's top scorer Dion Wingfield (30 points) and Pascal de Benito (19 points) took Demons into the lead. Like Demons, Killester kept on the fringes of the title race with a 103-71 win in Dungannon on Saturday night.

Killarney plundered two away wins in Dublin over the weekend by first defeating Notre Dame on Saturday 78-65 in Tallaght before pulling off another away win by 95-80 against Tolka Rovers yesterday.

In the women's Superleague, Wildcats began another potentially long unbeaten run by winning easily 107-62 in Limerick who clearly suffered the backlash of the Waterford club's reaction to seeing their 33-match unbeaten run come to an end last week at Tolka. Wildcats now need only one more victory for a fifth consecutive title.