BASKETBALL: A stunning eighth straight win ended a long, hard West Midlands Premier League campaign for Airedale Kidderminster Cobras.

Coach Terry Cash, clearly delighted with his team's form during March and April, sought one final effort from his men to finish the season on a high note.

And his players obliged with a 74-62 home success over West Midlands Police with Matt Law netting an impressive 27 points.

The early signs were promising as Law opened the scoring and Mark Bonshor followed up with a three-point play.

Cobras looked to break quickly at every opportunity as the visitors seemed to have difficult slowing the early play down.

Kidderminster were 13-4 ahead within five minutes before Roy Francis hit a trademark three-pointer and Law displayed ominous form.

Cash's side breezed their way to a 22-11 first-quarter lead but they knew Police would eventually find their shooting range.

An immediate three-pointer from the restart sounded an early warning but Cobras still found the basket with patient 20-second offences.

A scoring surge from the visitors' Burgess closed the gap to five points only for the unstoppable Law to ram home three unanswered baskets to redress the balance.

Two frees from Francis left Cobras nine points ahead at half-time but they were unable to relax as Police made a game of it.

Cash changed defence early in the third quarter, going man-to-man on shooting threats Burgess and Renton.

They maintained a zone triangle as Police again came back with fine long-range efforts.

It seemed to pay dividends as Cobras' opponents upped their game and began to erode the lead.

Martin Usherwood calmed the nerves with an immaculate inside drive but the visitors had the last word to be only 48-44 behind with a quarter remaining.

Cobras knuckled down as needed and Law suddenly found room to do damage with ball-handler Francis turned provider in a critical spell.

The advantage grew to seven but despite a Francis three-pointer, the visitors wrestled the scores back to 63-61 with four minutes left.

Cobras still seemed the fitter and fresher side which proved the deciding factor along with their patient, deliberate build-up play.

The home side hit a purple patch just at the vital time, extending their unbeaten sequence with a great last few minutes as Law sank the final basket in great style.

Along with Law's mammoth effort, Bonshor added 15 points, Francis 12 and Ian Marriott eight.