Lightning strikes to sit at the top of TBL

BASKETBALL: An impressive fourth quarter burst has kept Toowoomba City Lightning as the only remaining undefeated team in the TBL.

Coming up against favoured outfit The A Team, the Lightning piled on 30 points in the final term to clinch an 80-72 victory.

Joe Johnson was again a force for The A Team, finishing with a game-high 24 points.

However it was the Lightning’s floor general that proved the difference, with Jason Ebneter scoring 13 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter.

“Jason was huge for us in the fourth,” coach Matt Cox said.

“There was a patch where he was able to exploit a mismatch and scored eightstraight points.

“He’s a really experienced guy and continued to run our team structure.”

Centre Jason Spurgin was strong again with 16 points, while Isaac Wormald and James Kuereng provided valuable minutes.

“James has been a bit of an X-factor and I try to use him off the bench as a bit of a spark,” Cox said.

“I played him a lot down the stretch and he’s a guy that has really bought into what the team is doing.

“Isaac has bounced around a few junior rep teams but can really shoot the lights out.”

The other men’s fixture for the evening between the Dragons and Breakers was postponed to be played at a later date.

The women’s competition got underway as well on Monday night, with the Chiefs and Aces playing out a one-point thriller.

A consistent scoring effort across the board saw the Chiefs claim a narrow 43-42 victory.

As the game came down to the wire with the Aces leading by one with 16 seconds to play, Simone Grant was able to hit the game winner, giving the girls their inaugural win.

The night’s other match launched a three-pronged attack, with the Crusaders dominating Team Mamba 69-44.

Taylor Valach and Kaila Gabriel top scored with 18 points, while Morgan Prentice had 15 in an impressive opening showing.

Claudia Ott provided resistance for Team Mamba with 17 points.