Malta 76
San Marino 61
(17-16, 26-14, 23-16, 10-15)

The men's basketball team finally broke their duck in the 2009 GSSE when they beat San Marino 76-61 in their final match of the round robin competition yesterday.

The win saw the team finishing in fifth place, with six points from five matches, one ahead of bottom-placed San Marino. Cyprus took gold as they topped the standings with a maximum of 10 points ahead of Luxembourg and Andorra.

Bruno Dipietrantonio's Malta made a bright start to the match and after edging the opening session 17-16 they went on to open a commanding 13-point advantage at the change of ends to go into the interval 43-30 ahead.

San Marino looked to be struggling to contain the fast play of the Maltese who, inspired by Marko Matijevic, were again in control in the third session to continue breaking clear ahead of the final 10 minutes - 66-46.

The Maltese eased their tempo in the final session, allowing their opponents to exchange the proceedings but not enough for San Marino to avoid a fifth successive defeat at these Games.

Matijevic was the game's leading scorer with 25 points.

Despite the low position in the final standings, Dipietrantonio said his team can still return home with their head held high after what he described as a fruitful campaign in Cyprus.

"Apart from our first match against Iceland, where we were unable to settle down, we have put up a very decent show here. We were up against very strong teams... this was no easy competition.

"One also has to remember that we had our key players Sam Deguara and Godfrey Gauci unavailable. With them in the team it would have been a different story."

Final standings: Cyprus (5-0) 10; Luxembourg (3-2) 8; Andorra (3-2) 8; Iceland (3-2) 8; Malta (1-4) 6; San Marino (0-5) 5.