Basketball: Jets win third Trophy

Chester Jets' coach Robbie Peers led the club to their third successive BBL Trophy title with Saturday's 84-82 win over London Towers at the Sheffield Arena and his sixth title overall since he started the club's run of success in the 2001 Trophy final.

Last season Jets won all four domestic titles, but after this latest win Peers said: "This is the best of the lot. To win consistently is incredible and to win three Trophy titles in a row is monumental. That's such a big thing for a small club like ours."

Jets fans have been speculating for months that Peers would be leaving this summer to join the under-achieving Towers, whose watching general manager Rick Taylor needed little reminding of Peers' abilities.

Peers, a former England international, is interested in English players only as practice fodder for his foreign imports and divides his court time between five Americans and a New Zealander.

Peers said: "Each summer I try to put a team together to be competitive and exciting on the floor, but that's hard to beat too."

Yet opponents rarely manage to stretch his six-man rotation and Jets survived on Saturday despite injuries to John Thomas, Calvin Davis and Kenny Gregory, who led all scorers with 24 points despite knee ligament damage which may keep out for the next four games.

Jets led 84-78 before Towers' Theo Dixon hit the target three times in a row, but the third shot was launched after the final buzzer, allowing Peers to join Kevin Cadle (Kingston) and Mick Bett (Thames Valley Tigers) in winning three successive Trophy finals.