Kevin Sunich

De­tour Shak At­tack will meet Strak­er Nets in the fi­nal of the 2010 North Zone Bas­ket­ball League Knock­out Tour­na­ment at the Jean Pierre Sports Com­plex tonight from 8 pm. De­spite a match-high 17 points from op­pos­ing Ak­il La Roach, Shak At­tack blew out Diego Mar­tin All-Stars by 28 points (78-50) in a semi­fi­nal con­test on Sat­ur­day to claim its place in the fi­nal. The 2009 "Big Four" cham­pi­on, which oust­ed favourite De­fence Force in the quar­ter­fi­nal, went to work from the open­ing whis­tle, and the Diego Mar­tin team could not re­spond. At the end of the first half, the lead was 17 (38-21).

Shak At­tack con­tin­ued to out­play its op­po­nent in the sec­ond half, scor­ing 40 points, while hold­ing Diego to 29. For­ward Ter­rance May­ers led three play­ers in dou­ble fig­ures with 12 points, all com­ing from three-point shots. La Roach was the on­ly play­er from the All-Stars to reach dou­ble dig­its. Tonight's open­ing match will see de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Vet­er­ans tak­ing on Cru­saders in the fi­nal of the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Knock­out tour­na­ment. Mean­while, a match-high 31 points from na­tion­al cen­tre, Ali­cia Liv­er­pool was not enough to pre­vent na­tion­al cham­pi­on De­fence Force from go­ing un­der to Courts Hori­zon 67-62 in a women's First Di­vi­sion en­counter.

Rachael King had a team-high 23 points for Hori­zon, which held a 16-13 lead at the end of the first quar­ter. De­fence Force ral­lied back to take a 32-27 lead at the end of the half. Hori­zon then bounced back in the third pe­ri­od to lead (52-44), a lead which it nev­er gave up there­after. De­spite De­fence Force outscor­ing Hori­zon 18-15 in the fi­nal quar­ter, the lat­ter was able to hold on for the win, as na­tion­al women's coach and for­mer WN­BA play­er Pietra Gay, scored eight of her 20 points in the pe­ri­od.

Re­sults

First Di­vi­sion KO semis:

De­tour Shak At­tack 78 (Ter­rance May­ers 12, Kurt Chris­t­ian 11, Ker­ron Williams 10) vs Diego Mar­tin All Stars 50 (Ak­il La Roache 17)

Women's 1st Di­vi­sion:

Courts Hori­zon 67 (Rachael King 23, Pietra Gay 20, Mar­cellin Roberts 11) vs De­fence Force 62 (Ali­cia Liv­er­pool 31, Jody Sprott 10)

Women's 2nd Di­vi­sion:

Diego Mar­tin All Stars 26 (Ani­ka Not­ting­ham 11) vs Courts Hori­zon 18 Tami­ka Hoyce 7)

Patrick "KK" Joseph Youth Tour­na­ment:

Off Lim­its 59 (Richard Taitt 10, Matthew Shep­pard 9) vs Trail­blaz­ers 38 (Shane Am­brose 12, Isa­iah Wilkin­son 9)