Ansett pair soar to darken day for Lightning

THE party tricks from American attacking combination Robert Skinner and Jerron Jamerson were in full swing in Ansett’s big 138-89 win over Lightning in men’s Darwin Basketball Championship action on Thursday night.

Jamerson piled on 45 points and Skinner played a good support role, scoring 24 points.

The size of the victory moved Ansett to second spot on percentages above Eagles, who had an upset 115-109 loss to Palmerston on Friday night.

“It was a pretty good win. With games like this we’ve just got to focus on keeping our focus and executing different things that we’re going to do against other teams,” Skinner said.

The 23-year-old guard said all it took was a look from Jamerson to know what play he wanted. Skinner and Jamerson combined for two alleyoops and a stack of well executed no-look passes which led to points.

“A lot of our duos now, we just give each other eye contact and know what we want to do with the ball,” said Skinner, who hails from Central Maine College, where Ansett product Freddy Webb is playing.

“In games like this it’s good to work on those things. I gave him an alley-oop and he was able to throw me an alley-oop.

“Little things like that we can carry on to the next game.”

Despite the margin, the Blues were not happy with their defence to concede 89 points against the sixth-placed Lightning.

“There’s no mountain to the top when it comes to playing defence, because you can always do better on the defensive end,” Skinner said.

“We’ve got to stay focused on our defensive side and that will make it easier for our offence, because we like to get out and run.”

Jesse Bell (37 points) and Cameron Bailey (18) were among Lightning’s best.

“We’re a bit undermanned with Austin Kisselev and Craig Martin away, and Shaq (Hohipa-Wilson) out injured now,” Bailey said. “Hopefully we can regroup but time is running out. We’re going to have to make a push real quick.”

In other results, Essington beat Tracy Village 126-75 and the Uni Rebels defeated Razzle 88-68. In Women’s Championship action, Ansett beat Lightning 70-48, Razzle beat Rebels 62-57 and Palmerston defeated Eagles 58-41.

Israeli import Tal Yakov starred once again for the second-placed Ansett in their big win, scoring 36 points.