Abercrombie marks milestone at home

BASKETBALL

The New Zealand Breakers’ first home game at North Shore Events Centre this season will be an opportunity to celebrate one of the Shore’s own stars. Shore local Tom Abercrombie has been playing for the Breakers in the Australian National Basketball League since 2009. Abercrombie brought up his 250th game for organisation in a win against the Brisbane Bullets on October 26. Tonight, the Breakers will celebrate the 30-year-old’s milestone when they take the court at the NSEC against the against the Adelaide 36ers, as the Breakers look to maintain their winning streak and position atop the NBL ladder alongside Perth Wildcats.

The round five NBL game tips off at 7.35pm.

Abercrombie also joins 11 other Breakers in being named in Tall Blacks head coach Paul Henare’s extended roster of 23 players ahead of the upcoming FIBA World Cup Qualifier against South Korea in Wellington. Twelve players from the extended squad will suit up against the Koreans on November 23.

The squad is notable for the inclusion of European based stars Isaac Fotu, Tai Webster and Israel based Corey Webster.

Henare says the game in Wellington marks the start of a journey towards not only the FIBA World Cup, but the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and he wants his best players involved and committed from the start of the campaign.

LAWN BOWLS

With the centre’s top bowlers, Tony Grantham and Elaine McClintock the spearheads, Browns Bay continued its dominance of North Harbour bowls’ major tournaments.

Grantham, now with Browns Bay as well as Birkenhead, skipped a line-up of Adam Haywood, Scott Mouton and Lindsay Gilmore to a 17-14 win over the Leon Wech-skipped Mairangi Bay four in the men’s final at Milford. And McClintock made it a Browns Bay double when she skipped Kerin Roberts, Eileen Shand and Christeen Dalzell to a 19-10 win over another four from the club skipped by Rona Turner in the women’s final.

For Grantham, with 13 centre titles to his credit, it was good preparation for the upcoming Transtasman series on the Gold Coast when he will be part of the Black Jacks squad.

For Haywood and Gilmore it was their first Harbour titles.

CHRIS HYDE/GETTY IMAGES Tom Abercrombie shoots during his 250th NBL match between the Brisbane Bullets and New Zealand Breakers on October 26