COLLINS STEWART ONE defeated Jersey Champions FJ Carter Celtics in the ‘Upton’ to complete a remarkable treble. Playing on their home court at Beau Sejour on Saturday, Collins Stewart comfortably took care of Celtics 71-56.

The victory wrapped up a great season that saw them take the Yorkshire Guernsey League and cup.

The side has had a great turn around under their new player-coach Jeff Stuart who took over earlier this year.

‘It was an excellent win,’ Jeff Stuart.

‘I’m really pleased with a great team performance. The team worked really hard.

‘Hopefully it was an enjoyable game to watch and it was nice to get the win. It was a fantastic end to the season and I’m really happy with how the team has changed.

‘They are a different team from when I took over.’

Stuart put his team in the lead early on as their aggressive defence seemed to take Celtics by surprise as the home side raced into a 10-0 lead.

Celtics finally got on the board through Chris Byrne and Paul Graff to close to 12-6 but back-to-back ‘threes’ from Stuart ensured his side had a good lead at the break 21-10.

Into the second and the player-coach again showed his class from inside and out with 11 points in the quarter.

The visitors started to find their feet with Byrne and Graff continuing their good work combining for 13 of their side’s 16 second-quarter points.

At the half, Collins still held an 11-point lead at 37-26.

They extended this advantage in the third with some good team basketball and a number of fast breaks as Celtics began to chase the game.

Byrne and Graff were still on the end of most Celtic attacks and without them the score would have looked very one-sided.

Another three from Stuart to close the quarter saw the lead grow to 18 points.

The final quarter was littered with fouls as the Jersey team tried to stop the clock and at one stage they cut the lead to nine points but, as they ran out of time, CS remained composed and hit six of their last eight free throws to close the game out.

Stuart led all scorers with 31 in his most valuable player performance, where he displayed a strong outside game.

Since his arrival on the island at the start of the season, the Welshman has mainly been used as a centre or a power forward and his long range shooting skills have hardly featured.

‘I didn’t want to show too much too early,’ he said.

‘My background has always been as a shooting guard but I’ve learnt to fit into a team to be able to play from one to five.

‘It was nice we had a balance in the team so I was able to move to the outside and show another part of my game that happened to be effective on the day.’