Boroughmuir Blaze carry Capital hopes in basketball play-offs

There will be no all-Edinburgh final of the Scottish Basketball League Championship Play-Offs on April 1.

Though Boroughmuir Blaze justified their seeding in an amazing shoot-out at the Crags SC, beating the young Stirling Knights side 118-105 in their quarter-final, Edinburgh Kings crashed at Portobello High to Glasgow Storm, who produced their best display of the season to win 72-66.

With league champions Falkirk Fury holding off Dunfermline Reign at the Mariner SC 81-70 and St Mirren overcoming Edinburgh University 94-69 at Paisley, it means that this weekend Storm will travel to Falkirk for the semi-final, while Saints will have home advantage against Blaze.

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After Kings had soundly beaten Fury in their final regular season game at Portobello, hopes had been high that the City side could repeat that success against the top seeds. But whether they underestimated Storm or whether the different match-ups did not suit them, Kings struggled to subdue the visitors despite another 26 points and a stack of rebounds from their big centre Ali MacKay.

Kings struggled in the opening quarter and were 23-15 down and were still seven down at half-time.

Promising junior Ryan Armour had a bright spell with three three-pointers in a 13 point tally but also made some turnovers.

With swing guard Kyle Haldane matching MacKay with 26 points and Joe Savagilo adding 18, Storm could not be curbed in the closing minutes.

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The women’s semi-final between Kool Kats and Falkirk Fury, which was due to be played at 11am according to the BasketballScotland website, did not take place and is now the subject of a another dispute which the sport could do without.

The other semi-final between Tayside Musketeers and Edinburgh Uni B is now likely to go ahead in Broughty Ferry on March 26.

EU women excelled in beating Cardiff Met 86-54 in the British Universities Final Eights at Newcastle but went down narrowly 79-74 to Durham in the semi-final.