EASTERN Piston and Spanish Town Meadows won their first game to take respective 1-0 leads in the INSPORTS/SDC/SDF Southern Basketball Conference (SBC) Division 1 League best-of-three semi-finals at the Stadium Courts on Tuesday.

The Pistons defeated the previously unbeaten Jamaica Fire Services, 71-62, while Meadows turned back Swallowfield All-Stars, 48-39.

The second games will be played this evenin with Piston vs Fire Services at 6:15 pm and Meadows vs Swallowfield at 8:15.

Fire Services were caught off guard by the fast pace of Pistons, who quickly went into a 7-0 lead.

However, the Firemen rallied to level the scores at 9-9 and went in front for a brief moment, 11-9. But it was the Pistons who regained the lead for a quarter-time score of 17-14.

The second quarter saw a number of squandered chances, which resulted in Pistons scoring eight points and Fire Services five in the 10-minute playing time. Pistons led 25-19 at the half.

Action in the third quarter was evenly contested. Fire Services scored five points to close at 25-24 before the game turned into a ding-dong tussle.

The Firemen seemed to have found their rhythm and after tying the scores at 29-29 and led, 32-21, from a three-pointer. They then led, 36-31, before the game was tied once more at 37-37.

The Pistons took over the remaining minutes to go into a 45-37 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The Pistons made certain in the fourth quarter as Fire Services stayed far behind in the scoring as Johnson, Chevannes and Miller teamed well to push ahead, 58-41.

The principal scorers for the Pistons were Michael Johnson with a game-high 30 points. Vaughn Chevannes and Jermaine Miller scored 12 points each. Nico Phillips and Denham Johnson scored 24 and 15 points, respectively.

In the second game of the evening, Swallowfield surprised the Meadows by going in front, 11-6, and by the end of the first quarter were still in front, 12-10.

Meadows scored 15 points to Swallowfield’s nine for a 25-20 lead at half-time.

The Roger Marshall-coached Swallowfield outscored the David Harrison-coached Meadows 11-9 in the third quarter. Meadows, with a third-quarter lead of 34-31, pulled away in the fourth, scoring 14 points against eight from Swallowfield to win handsomely.

Meadows’ Damion Johnson got 15 points and 11 rebounds, while Keiron Dill bagged nine points and seven rebounds.

For Swallowfield, Dean Whittingham and Jervis Hamilton scored 12 and 11 points, respectively.