Tropics went through to the Play-Off finals at the expense of Burnley in a tough encounter at the Warrington Ball Hall on Saturday evening.

Burnley arrived confident, having done the double over League Champions Tropics in the regular season, despite missing point guard Cummins, stuck in Dublin .

The first quarter was a good one for Burnley , scores for McEvoy, Hylands and the two Bolt brothers with telling contributions on the boards at both ends from Madej saw Burnley go into an 18-11 lead. Tropics, matching up man for man, were second best at this point.

The second quarter was much more even, a couple of quick scores from Purcell and Mohammed closed the gap, but more points from the line kept Burnleys noses in front. Half time came with Burnley with a 37-29 lead.

The third quarter saw Tropics mount a real charge; eight unanswered points with Smith at the fore saw Burnleys lead disappear, before a Hylands score put them back in front by 2. Despite a giant performance by Kirk on the defensive boards, the lead swung to and fro till the end of the third quarter with the score 45-46 to Tropics.

By now, Tropics were rotating their big men in the post against Burnleys tiring defense, whilst running a three guard offense – this had two advantages- the fast break offense coupled with an outside shooting threat, and a quicker moving defense, despite the obvious height disadvantage they had.

This proved to be the turning point in the game. Fast ball movement leading to easy scores saw Tropics edge to a handy lead with scores from Smith and Senegore. Burnley continued to put in a huge defensive effort, but the game got away from them in the last three minutes.

Full credit to Tropics, but Burnley can be more than happy with the improvement over this season.