Durham League _ The Men's Durham County Cup reached its third round this week, a round of games which produced several shocks as teams from lower divisions beat first division sides.

The biggest upset gave division three underdogs, Durham Saints a 68-64 victory at home to first division University of Teesside. University did travel under strength, but Saints kept battling and it paid off. University started well and bossed much of the tie. Chris Harnish and John Freeman did the early damage to steer the students through the first quarter 21-15 up and into the interval 37-31 to the good. Phil Bailey and Colin Lishman had responded for Saints, but for eighteen minutes of the second half the story was the same with University setting the pace and Saints hanging on to their coat-tails. With two minutes left University led 62-59 and were still favourites to win and yet somehow the momentum swung to Saints as Lishman found space inside, hit two baskets in a 9-2 finish and led Saints marching into the quarter-finals Durham Saints match winner was Lishman with 33 points, Bailey and Neil Guthrie chipped in with 12 and 10. Harnish did all he could for University with 22 points as Freeman added 13.

The second upset came as Hartlepool Hornets beat Norton A 89-77 after extra-time at Stockton. It was 51-51 with ten minutes left and the tension in that last quarter was unbearable. With fifteen seconds left Hornets had a one point lead at 70-69, but Steve Butler stole the ball and charged down court only to be fouled. He missed the first, but scored the second and the contest was into overtime at 70-70. Three of the five extra minutes were even and finished at 77-76 to Norton, but the division one side will want to forget the last two minutes as their game fell to pieces and Hornets hit 13 points without reply to win the tie.

Middleton, Ord and Dan Bailey led the scoring for Hartlepool Hornets with 25, 24 and 23 points respectively. O'Donohue and Jenkins netted 21 and 16 points for Norton A. The trio of upsets was completed by Consett Steelers, another division two side, who had a nail-biting 76-75 success over first division Nissan. Two of the remaining ties were played, both went to form.

Middlesbrough Mavericks lead the first division at the moment, but they had to dig deep to see off another second division club, Old Houghtonians. The tie finished at a comfortable 64-46 to Mavericks, but Houghtonians gave them plenty to think about before all was settled.

Mavericks made the better start by bottling up Houghtonians offence to restrict them to only three points in the opening ten minutes. They had though scored only 13 points of their own by the time the quarter finished. A run of 14 unanswered points shared between Mat Ellis, Wayne Bailey and Marek Pawlak, left Mavericks in charge at 33-12 at half-time, but the interval only served to send the division one side into that coma called complacency. Houghtonians came out on fire and led by Ben Scorer and Simon Lloyd they ripped through the third quarter to leave Mavericks ahead, but uncomfortable at 42-31. The deficit was reduced to 49-42 with four minutes left before baskets from five different players put Mavericks in the clear again. The uncertainty which clouded Mavericks win was reflected in the solo scores as only Pawlak managed double figures, albeit with an excellent 22 points. Lloyd and Scorer collected 18 and 14 apiece for Old Houghtonians, as Paul Carr landed 12. First division East Durham and Houghall College A hosted neighbours Hartlepool Hawks, in the second of the ties which went to form and but this time the third division minnows found the skills gap too wide and were firmly put in their place with a 147-73 defeat at Peterlee.

Ian Barrow grabbed an amazing 66 points, although he did admit that he spent most of the game camped in Hawks half. John Bergin and Malcolm Johnson hit 41 and 25. Despite the cricket score at the other end, Luke and Leon Thompson and Dan Dixon finished with 20,17 and 15 respectively for Hawks.

That left three ties uncontested which meant that three sides, Belmont A, Middlesbrough College Academy and Teesside Huskies, reached the quarter-finals without having to break sweat. The three were due to meet Trimdon Community College Association, East Durham and Houghall College B and Peterlee Video respectively. All three clubs claimed to be unable to field teams and so conceded. Two preliminary round games of the Womens Handicap Cup were played.

The first tie brought together old rivals Sunderland Nissan and North Tyneside. The fixture was off scratch and an evenly contested battle finished at 53-49 to Sunderland Nissan. Northumbria had eked out a 26-25 advantage by the interval, before Sunderland won the game in the third quarter. Audrey Crawford and Julie Dyos led the way and a 15-6 ten minutes netted them enough of a gap at 40-32 to hold off the stronger finishing Northumbria.

Crawford top scored for Sunderland NIssan with 17 points, Adele Gair and Dyos collected 14 and 13, whilst best for Northumbria was Elin Carlsson on 22. Durham Knights were given a 20 point start in the second handicap game, but they could not make it tell and so slumped to a 85-73 defeat against Newcastle College Wildcats.

McLure and Ross were excellent with 28 and 27 points apiece for Newcastle College and they got good support from Cairns and Kate Lindsley hit 12 and 10 each. Durham Knights; Tryselius (12), Alex Rogers (12), Tamara Davies (11) and Alison Turner (10).

Teesside Basketball League

The top of the conference league has a familiar look about it this Week, after the top three sides all continued their winning ways to break further away from the rest of the division. TVL Mohawks continue to hold off second placed Plymouth Raiders and Solent Stars following a 104-85 win at Manchester on Saturday, in a game that saw the referees lose control in a farcical third quarter that resulted in both home star Jon Linsley and magic head coach Jeff Jones ejected. The incident gave Mohawks an incredible 10 free throws, of which Ralph Bucci, who went on to top score with 27, converted all six of his and E J Harrison sank two from four.

Mohawks went into the game without captain Neil Hopper. Bucci was just one of six Mohawks to pick up double figures. Jason Swaine was next best with 18, James Nicholson picked up 10, Lijah Perkins 16, Pete Knechtel 13 and E J Harrison 11.