Star of the Sea's long and patient wait for a league title success will almost certainly come to an end inside next three weeks following their 100-83 victory over their closest rivals, Notre Dame, yesterday in Belfast's Maysfield Centre.
The victory leaves Star leading the league table by a clear four points and, significantly, their 17-point winning margin yesterday gives them an aggregate advantage of eight points over Notre Dame in the two matches played between the teams this season.
That statistic ensures that in the unlikely event of Notre Dame pulling back the deficit in the last three rounds of matches to finish level on points with Star at the top of the table, then the Belfast side would still claim the title on a superior points aggregate in the matches played between the two teams.
If Star win one more game out of the three remaining, they will have an unassailable advantage at the top of the table and will be champions for the first time in their history. Should they do so, then they can quickly put behind them the huge disappointment of their poor Cup semi-final performance a fortnight ago when they lost to Notre Dame. Yesterday, Notre Dame went into an early 8-2 lead. Star quickly came back to level it, helped by two threepointers from Adrian Fulton and from there until close to half-time there was little between the sides as Daniel Johnson and Randall Mounts provided a steady stream of scores for Notre Dame.
A minute before the break, the score was tied at 41-all but it then seemed as though the Dubiners had gained an important psychological edge by scoring the last two baskets of the half to change over with a 4541 lead.
However, Star clicked into quickfire mode immediately on the restart to pile on 12 points in-a-row without reply, including a pair of three-pointers from Chuck Guittar and Gareth Maguire and a stirring steal and lay-up from Fulton.
That catapulted Star into a clear eight-point lead, at 53-45, with only three minutes gone in the second period. They never lost the lead.
In fact they stretched away to lead 69-56 entering the last quarter of the game and at that point they lost their American, John Leahy with a recurrence of a hand injury.
However, Kevin Craig came off the bench and slotted in seamlessly into the role of the injured American.
Star went on to lead 83-66 with four minutes remaining and 17 points remained the difference between the teams at the finish. Maguire was Star's top scorer on 26 points, including a total of five three-pointers, but the contributions of Guittar (24 pts), Fulton (19 pts) and the veteran Javan Dupree (16 pts) were highly significant as well. Dupree was named MVP, mainly for his outstanding defence on Johnson and others in the second half.
Johnson was Notre Dame's top scorer on 26, but only eight of those came after the interval. Randall Mounts scored 22 and Lennie McMillan, who had a quiet game, scored 14.
In men's Division One, Sligo failed to make sure of victory in their campaign as they were beaten 91-85 by Waterford, who now close within just two points of their northwest rivals.
There will certainly be one league trophy residing in Waterford over the summer. Wildcats made mathematically certain of their fourth successive Women's Superleague title with a very easy 102-53 win in Limerick.
