DEFENDING champions Grace Food Processors (Canning) defeated Sagicor Life Jamaica 33-28 to clinch their best-of-five Business House Basketball Association (BHBA) Division One League series 3-1 in Game Four at the National Stadium Basketball Courts on Monday night.

It was a game that could have gone either way, especially in the last two minutes, but the champions held off the late charge of their opponents to seal the win and the title.

Grace were winning the Division One League title for the third consecutive year and the fourth overall. However, the player who was at the helm of Grace’s win was Andrew Gouldbourne, who scored 16 points. Cordel Grant scored 16 points also for Sagicor.

Meanwhile, Tyrone Fairweather, player/coach of Grace Canning, admitted that it was a tough match, and a hard season, as all the players played their part in the success. “I am very glad and feeling good for coming out as the champions once again,” he said.

“Sagicor is a good team and they played well, but we were the better team in Game Four. We slipped a little and allowed our opponents to come back in contention, but we held them off in the closing stages to come out with the victory.”

Michael Kirlew, coach of Sagicor, said it was a good game, but Grace Canning were the better team on the night.

“The players missed too many shots, while our opponents were scoring. We came back strongly in last five minutes and put pressure on Grace after being down 23-30 and closed at 28-32 with one minute remaining. However, in those 60 seconds, we missed several shots resulting in our opponents holding us off to win,” Kirlew said.

Meanwhile, in Game Four of the Division Two League best-of-five finals, Xerox Limited defeated Accent Marketing Limited 26-22 to level the series 2-2. They will go into Game Five today starting at 6:30 pm.

Winning coach and captain Keisha Walker said she knew that from the team took the lead in the first half, Xerox would have won. “We came out scoring well in the first quarter to have taken the lead at the interval.

“However, the players lapsed a bit and our opponents closed our lead by two points. I gave instructions to the players of a different tactic and they did well to come out with the victory,” said Walker, who is confident of winning this evening and thus clinching the series.

Sheldon Reid, player/coach for Accent, said it was quite a good game but the first half lead by Xerox gave them the upper hand. “We fought back strongly in the last five minutes, came close to trail by two points, but we missed when it matters most.”