ST George’s Saints overcame Portmore Flames, 97-87, in a pulsating triple over-time FLOW/National Basketball League (NBL) game at the Stadium Courts on Thursday.

Kirk Ferguson with a game-high 34 points and 11 rebounds and Anthony White with 20 points and 23 rebounds led the way for the Rohan Allen-coach Saints.

Kenardo Smith was the topscorer for Flames with 29 points and 14 rebounds, with support from Devroy Gray with 18 points and 14 rebounds, and Jermaine Jacobs with 15 points and eight rebounds.

Allen said they are still learning as a young team, but thought his team pulled off a “great” victory.

“We keep starting games poorly and we need to correct that… but any win is a good win. Tonight was a great win in triple over-time; something that we have not seen… so it was great work and effort from the players,” he said.

Flames started brightly and raced into an impressive 19-9 lead after the first quarter. Their advantage fell only a point at half-time after Saints took the period, 25-24.

In the third quarter, the Saints fell further behind as the Flames outscored them, 16-13, to extend their lead to 12 points at the end of the stanza.

However, the Saints pulled off the most remarkable of comebacks in the fourth and slowly cut into their opponent’s lead. In the last minute of the game, Ferguson scored his team’s last three baskets, the last of which tied the game at 67-67.

The first period of extra-time failed to produce a winner as the teams battled to a 10-10 score in the first period to be tied at 77-77. The second yielded similar results as the teams shared eight points to leave the scores tied at 85-85.

However, in the third period of over-time, the Saints found their rhythm and ran their opponents ragged to take a 12-2 win for the period and a 97-87 lead overall.

In another game, Waterhouse Blazers turned back Spanish Town Spartans, 66-65. The Blazers, who were scoring their fifth win in nine matches, took an 18-11 lead after the first quarter. But the Spartans came right back into the game and drew level at 30-30 at half-time.

Again, Waterhouse took the initiative in the third and stretched their lead to eight points at one stage, but the Spartans reduced the deficit to two points (46-44) at the end of the third quarter.

In the fourth, Blazers continued to set the pace and were ahead by five points with only a minute left, but Spartans cut away their advantage and with nine seconds to go, Lydford Brown scored to tie the game at 65-65.

However, with just over two seconds left, the Blazers won a foul and Shawn McLean netted the second of his two free-throws to win the game for the Michael Kirlew-coached team by a point.