By Sports Reporter/Doha

James Davon’s match-high 30-point effort wasn’t enough as Al Rayyan were edged out by El Jaish by a solitary point to win their Qatar Basketball League match 81-80 at the Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday.
In the dying moments of the game, Jaish’s Fadi Abilmona passed the ball to team-mate Mohamed Youssef near the Rayyan basket and the latter made no mistake when he jumped and dunked it to snatch a thrilling win from Rayyan.
Through the match, the lead kept oscillating between the two outfits but settled into a neck-to-neck battle in the last ten minutes of the game. Rayyan had a seven-point lead at 67-60 going into the last quarter but Jaish, led by Shawn Taggart, scored 13 points to Rayyan’s six in the next five minutes to level the scores at 73-all.
Taggart dunked 28 points, which included eight two-pointers, a three-pointer, nine free-throws and a staggering 15 rebounds. Vernon Macklin pitched in with 18 points, while Mohamed Baker Ahmad and Fadi Abilmona scored 15 and 12 points respectively.
Davon›s 30-point effort was supported by Nana Ngueyep with 15 points and Abdulla Seleem’s 14 points. Seleem notched up a match-high 17 rebounds.
In contrast, Qatar Sports Club powered ahead to a convincing 91-77 win over Al Ahli in the second match of the day.
Ahli’s one-point lead at 12-11 after the first five minutes of the game amounted to nothing by the end of it all with Qatar SC surging ahead from then on.
Qatar SC saw some impressive performances by Craig Winder, who top-scored the match with 30 points, and Wallace Cox, who pitched in with 26 points.
Winder had nine two-pointers, three three-pointers and three free throws to his name apart from six rebounds.
Others to get into double figures for the winners were Mahmoud Ahmed (13 points), Jama al-Rahman (12 points) and Scott Farrington (10 points).
For Ahli, Tyronne McNeal and Consteveous Jefferson tried hard to catch up Qatar SC, scoring 25 points each, but it wasn›t enough. Omar Ahmad was the other notable scorer for Ahli with 21 points.
Today, Al Sadd will take on Al Khor in the earlier match at 5pm, while the second match at 7pm will see Al Wakrah face off with Al Arabi.