Basketball: Edinburgh side claim fifth championship in a row

Edinburgh KINGS' stalwart centre Simon Flockhart has declared that he is hungry for more titles as his club clinched the Scottish league basketball title for the fifth year in a row and eighth time in all at Portobello High School at the weekend.

"That's brought my personal title tally to ten and I'm still not tired of winning," said Flockhart, who shared two previous triumphs with the now defunct Dalkeith Saints team.

Kings may now want to target Boroughmuir's record of nine league titles, or even the great MIM's ten titles before they became Livingston, under which name they added another seven crowns.

But if they are to do that the Capital outfit will have to recruit. Without Latvian Edgars Rekis, one of their top men, Kings had seven players to accomplish their task of beating St Mirren in the clincher on Saturday, which they did 69-56.

Ahead just 10-9 after an abysmal first quarter, they improved marginally to 32-22 by half-time and they could be thankful that the visitors missed chances.

Guard Garreth Lodge, though lively enough in defence, missed his first seven free throws and ten in all. Fortunately Lee Reilly, despite feeling unwell beforehand and then dislocating his little finger, stepped up to score 22, with Mike Kirkpatrick adding 15.

Reilly completed a fine weekend with another 26 in yesterday's 81-52 final fixture win over East Lothian Peregrines, with Flockhart back in the points with 21 and Paddy Campbell 16. Rob Jansson had 13 including three three-pointers for Peregrines.

Edinburgh Kool Kats celebrated their National League trophy award with a 81-47 demolition of St Mirren, Charlotte King netting 25 and Sarah O'Brien 19 as they pulled away from a sluggish 12-11 first quarter.