City of Edinburgh Kings 72

St Mirren West College Scotland 62

ST MIRREN West College Scotland Senior Men faced their first big test of the season and came up just short against the Edinburgh Kings in Portobello last week.

In recent times Saints have been successful at Portobello and with the return of Nick Collins and former Saint and Glasgow Rock Fraser Glass, there was no reason to expect anything other than a good performance.

Kings fielded a full strength team while Saints were without the experienced Colin Railley and Dale Grieve.

The opening exchanges were a little scrappy with Dave Johnston opening the scoring for Saints and the Kings 6”10” Mackay scoring twice for the home team.

Baskets were then traded and only in the closing minute of the period did Saints assert themselves as Collins and then Domingues scored to give Saints a narrow 16-13 lead.

The second period saw a change in intensity from the home team as they scored back-to-back three pointers to take the lead.

Saints quickly responded with four three-pointers of their own. Chris Cleary scored three long range efforts and Chris Barron had one in the period.

Saints hung on well and looked as if they could play a lot better as they went to the changing room at 33-32 behind.

Fraser Glass opened the scoring in the third quarter for Saints with a three-pointer to keep things tight.

As the period progressed, Saints continued to miss what should have been easy shots and in spite of a lot of errors, the home team pulled away into a six-point lead at 55-49 to start the last 10 minutes.

St Mirren couldn’t find another gear in the final quarter to complete a comeback.

Their cause wasn’t helped when Dave Johnston fell victim to a new rule change that saw him sent out of the hall after just three minutes of the final quarter.

At this point Kings’ Mackay, who had been very quiet since the opening minute of the game, came to life and made 11 of his teams 17 point total.

Saints still failed to find a response and a very low 13 points saw them head for Paisley having suffered their first defeat of the season at 72-62.

Cleary’s 17 point total was the only consistent performance in a poor show from the Saints.

Nick Collins was the only other Saint in double figures at 11.