THE Ayr Storm U16 men made the short trip up to Renfrew looking to bounce back from the previous weeks overtime loss to Tornadoes.

However the journey was to face the powerhouse of basketball in the West - St Mirren, whose strength in depth means they can run three teams at this age group.

The Ayr side started strongly and gave Saints an early scare with 4 of the Ayr starters - Mathew Keegan, Paul Gibbons, Gabriel Lorimer, Harry Kerr -all getting early points on the board. The home side kept themselves in the game with Miller and Grant combining for 18 points in the first period to lead 22-17.

Period two was to turn out critical to the result. Like the opener it was tight with the teams trading baskets but as the sides approached half time Storm had just 2minutes of poor offence combined with slack defence and too many turnovers which saints took advantage of to stretch the lead and win the period 22:13.

Coach Danny Gibbons reminded the squad at half time of all the good work they had put in for 18 of the 20 minutes and that period three would be character defining. He was not disappointed as starting the second half 14 points down, Keegan and Gibbons combined to score the first 10 points of the period and put the home side in a panic, forcing them to call a time-out.

Ayr kept the pressure going and reduced the gap to one but a couple of strong plays let the Saints open the gap up again to 11. Period 3: 20:23.

Period four started the same with Keegan and Gibbons combining to find gaps in the St Mirren defence - then Brody Ferguson was also able to exploit the holes and his ninepoiints in the period helped Ayr go one up.

The home side, though pulled the game out the bag with match top scorer Lewis Grant (32 poubra) hitting two quick baskets and a huge three in the closing moments to make the final score a lot more comfortable looking than the large crowd had witnessed. Period 4: 23:26.

Final Score: St Mirren 2nds 87 Ayr Storm 79

Gibbons said: "The squad is learning with every game we play at this new level for us. While we are of course disappointed not to get the win there were so many positives in the boys play and their determination to get us back from 14 down and take the lead back for a while in period four. We are all looking forward to the return game later in the season back at Belmont."

Ayr squad: P Gibbons (25pts), C Lang (3), I Tomba, H Smith, H Kerr (4), D Martin, D Pirie (2), M Keegan (31), G Lorimer (8), B Ferguson (10)