MONTEGO BAY, St James — Two-time defending champions Catherine Hall All-Stars squandered a 20-point second-quarter lead before hanging on to beat promoted MBCC Knights by three points (60-57) in their Flow National Basketball League-West game at the Montego Bay Cricket Club on Saturday.

All-Stars, who were winning their second game in a row after losing their first three, held on after scoring just eight points in the third quarter, in which Knights took over the lead.

In the first game of the day, Hoopers were 76-68 winners over Lucea Flames to move into joint leadership with Granville Jaguars on 10 points each. Granville, who were idle last weekend, have played just five games, winning all of them, while Hoopers played one game more.

In the feature game, All-Stars took advantage of a slow start by Knights and led 15-8 after the first quarter, and then went on a 14-1 run in the second quarter, before Knights took over to score the last 11 points in the second quarter, and the first six in the third.

With All-Stars failing to score in the first seven minutes plus of the third quarter, Knights scored 17 unanswered points to draw level at 31 with four minutes and 17 seconds to go, then took the lead with two free throws from Michael Natoo. All-Stars did not score in the third quarter before two minutes and 50 seconds to go.

Knights led by two points (41-39) going into the fourth quarter, but the veteran leadership of Jermaine Rerrie, who had a game-high 20 points and 11 rebounds, and Ricardo Brooks, who scored 12 points, righted the ship for All-Stars as they rallied to eke out the win.

In addition to his 12 points, Brooks also had 10 rebounds, while Kurt Dorman scored 10 points and had 13 rebounds.

Daniel Malcolm was the top scorer for Knights with 17 points, while Natoo scored 11 points.

In the first game, Hoopers prevailed over Flames despite a game-high 25 points from Craig Dorman.

Flames led by a single point (11-10) after the first quarter, before Hoopers took over to lead 26-23 at half-time and extended the lead to 14 points (53-39), then cruised home with Marlon Comrie scoring 16 points and getting 15 rebounds, Ricardo Thomas scoring 12 points, while Cecil Cole, a former Flames player, scored 11 points.

Julian Walker scored 17 points in support of Dorman for Flames, while Oshando Greenfield and Cordel Gordon each scored nine points.