Holders through for fourth successive final

Hibernians 118 Depiro 70 (19-16, 33-14, 38-19, 28-21)

The Poalites cantered through to another K.O. final, their fourth in a row and in which they won the previous three along with two early successes in the late eighties. Hibs are making it a habit of running up high scores against Depiro as they did in the Louis Borg Cup even if they drew their second match – a rare occasion of a par in Basketball.

Both sides had their missing entities with Depiro feeling theirs more. The Paolites were without skipper Marco Matijevic and Serbian Ivan Demcesen. Depiro were missing their American Quinn Cooper for a second occasion and also had absentees in Nicholas Grech and Kurt Xuereb.

Hibs came running off from the blocks to make up a 7-2 start. Depiro slowly came back and even managed to reverse the score with a 10-2 run of their own and an Andy Attard triple.

Hibs regained their advantage putting in three buckets till the end of the session.

In the next period Depiro began to feel their opponents' pressure more. After a balanced start the Paolites made a 9-0 run with Anton Axiaq and American Jay Hardy points the latter ending up as the game’s top scorer. Czech Adam Chomo, who was Depiro's main spearhead, rolled in his hoops but Hibs ended the session on a good note hitting three treys from Luke Farrugia Hardy and Nikola Vasovic, the latter also adding more points as his side went in at the break on a heavy 52-30 advantage.

After the interval, Depiro still had no decent reply even if Chomo struck an early trey. The Paolites made ground with more triples as Hardy revelled with three more of his own along with another by Vasovic.

Depiro were left totally behind but answered with Matthew Borg and American Corderius Johnson treys.

The session’s last points came from the Hibs end with American Chandler Rowe hoops and a late David Bugeja trey with Hibs sitting pretty on a 90-49 score.

The last quarter had Depiro making more inroads as both sides opted to send in their local bench players with the result in no doubt. Hibs' points were more evenly spaced out between the players on court and Depiro had Timothy Zammit coming to the fore and netting a trio of triples along with more points to beef up his tally.

Hibs now await the outcome of the second semi final between Starlites and Luxol to know who their opponents will be in the final come the end of this new month.

Hibs: J. Hardy 34, P. Attard 3, D. Bugeja 17, K. Caruana 8, L. Farrugia 5, I. Bonett 2, N. Vasovic 18 , A. Axiaq 12, M. Attard 3, C. Rowe16, Depiro: C. Johnson 11, J. Attard, D. Farrugia 4 , A. Attard 7, O. Said 3, M. Brincat, A, Chomo 25, T. Zammit 17

Referees: B. Vassallo, Z. Dobrosavljevic, D. Torok

Photo: Domenic Aquilina