THE Stirling Senators scored their second win of the Men's SBL season on Sunday keeping the South West Slammers winless while the Willetton Tigers continued to impress with another big win.

Week 4 of the Men's SBL began on Friday night with the Perth Redbacks beating the East Perth Eagles 96-83, the Willetton Tigers downing the Perry Lakes Hawks 77-74, the Kalamunda Eastern Suns defeating the Mandurah Magic 101-86 and the Rockingham Flames prevailing over the Lakeside Lightning 98-83.

Then on Saturday night, the Geraldton Buccaneers won at home 89-75 over the Cockburn Cougars with the East Perth Eagles also beating the Joondalup Wolves 94-86 and the Kalamunda Eastern Suns downing the Goldfields Giants 84-66.

The round concluded on Sunday with the Willetton Tigers beating the Goldfields Giants 89-65 at Willetton Basketball Stadium and the Stirling Senators downing the South West Slammers 94-86 at Warwick Stadium.

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Sunday's action began at Willetton with the Tigers coming off impressive wins over the Geraldton Buccaneers and Perry Lakes Hawks with Ray Turner in the line-up.

That meant it was a big task for the Giants to bounce back from a Saturday night loss at Kalamunda to put up a fight, and unfortunately they weren’t really able to with the Tigers running out 24-point victors.

Willetton raced out to a 31-13 lead by quarter-time and it never really got much better for the Giants as the Tigers continue to warm nicely into the season with this weekend the first for Turner and Jay Bowie to play together.

It was Kyle Armour who top-scored on Sunday, though, with the point guard finishing with 19 points and three assists.

Bowie finished the afternoon with 17 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists while Turner added 15 points, eight boards, two assists and two blocked shots.

Damien Scott also had nine points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals for Willetton and Lachie Evans another seven points.

Captain Jacob Holmen again tried keep the Giants in touch with 26 points and six rebounds with JB Pillard adding 18 points and four boards, but they just didn’t get enough help again.

The rest of the Goldfields team combined to contribute just 21 points, 24 rebounds and 11 assists.

Then in the final game of the season at Warwick Stadium, the Senators were looking to stop a three-game losing slide and the Slammers hunting their first win of 2017.

Helping South West's cause was Brian Voelkel receiving his belated clearance to play his first game of the season.

Stirling was still without its import. But he was sitting on the bench and 6'10 big man Drew Naymick will be quite the addition for the Senators when he suits up on Thursday night.

The Senators did start strongly and led by 10 points at quarter-time, but the Slammers weren’t going away and with Tre Nichols scoring at will at times, they remained in touch trailing by seven at the half-time break.

The Slammers then picked up the momentum during the third quarter and at one-point had a five-point play on the one possession with Nichols knocking down a technical free-throw against Senators coach Mike Ellis, and his teammates scoring either side of that.

That took South West into the lead and the visitors had the momentum and appeared capable of going on with it for their first win of 2017, but it wasn’t to be.

The Senators had too much a variety of different players stepping up and continued to make shots and force turnovers when it mattered to end up winning by eight points.

Rhys Vague top-scored for the Senators again with 20 points, 13 rebounds and four assists but they had plenty more strong contributors.

Austin Bruton had a good afternoon with 19 points while Cody Ellis added 14 points, five assists and four rebounds, Ash Litterick 11 points, Jayden Coburn 11 points and four rebounds, and Jay Thwaites nine points and four boards.

Nichols ended up with 30 points for the Slammers on the back of shooting 11-of-22 from the field and 7-of-7 from the free-throw line.

Clive Weeden added 12 points, five rebounds and three blocks and Voelkel a near triple-double with 11 points, 14 boards and nine assists.

Teny Puot also had 10 points, Michael Lay eight points, four rebounds and three assists, Chris Douglas eight points and five boards, and Travis Durnin seven points and three rebounds.

Slammers coach Charles Nix only expects his team to improve now they finally have Voelkel in the line-up.

"We made a couple of critical turnovers and they got some really crucial offensive rebounds right at the end there that hurt us," Nix said.

"We are still finding some chemistry and Brian coming back in for the first game was good, but we play differently. Once we get our whole group together for a couple of weeks I see the results turning."

FRIDAY NIGHT ROUND 4 MEN'S SBL RESULTS
Perth Redbacks 96 defeated East Perth Eagles 83
Perry Lakes Hawks 74 lost to Willetton Tigers 77
Mandurah Magic 86 lost to Kalamunda Eastern Suns 101
Rockingham Flames 98 defeated Lakeside Lightning 83

SATURDAY NIGHT ROUND 4 MEN'S SBL RESULTS
Geraldton Buccaneers 89 defeated Cockburn Cougars 75
East Perth Eagles 94 defeated Joondalup Wolves 86
Kalamunda Eastern Suns 84 defeated Goldfields Giants 66

SUNDAY ROUND 4 MEN'S SBL RESULTS
Willetton Tigers 89 defeated Goldfields Giants 65
Stirling Senators 94 defeated South West Slammers 86

Photo by June Halliday