BURY Blue Devils clinched the Manchester Area Basketball League Championship title with a 85-65 victory over closest challengers St Helens in the final game of the season.

The comprehensive win on their home court at Bury Grammar School also secured automatic promotion to the MABL Premiership.

Bury came out firing on all cylinders, with all the starting five scoring in the first five minutes.

Vitoldas Balciunas found space inside and leapt over his defender for a score, then a great pass by player/coach Jason Knowles led to a basket for Phil Stainton.

Knowles was next to score, followed by Graham Greene and Stu Jackson, who hit a turnaround shot.

Bury cruised into a 16-6 lead by the midway point of the opening quarter and kept St Helens at arms length to finish out the period with a 24-13 advantage.

Veteran Mike Nichols started the second quarter with a couple of free throws followed by a three to extend the lead before the visitors found some motivation and reeled off a mini run.

The referees seemed to be calling things quite tightly as players on both sides picked up fouls almost on every play and it was the visitors that capitalised on poor decision-making by Bury to pull within two point.

Balciunas attacked the basket, was fouled and made his free throws but St Helens scored the next seven points to take a 37-35 lead into half time.

Bury did well defensively to keep the usually high-scoring visitors to only 37 points but started to struggle offensively.

They changed all that in the third quarter when Nichols and Stainton made their mark, hitting four three-pointers in the space of three minutes, while the team held the visitors to only two points.

A series of steals and blocks kept the pressure on while Balciunas and youngster Jude Esan joined the scoring as Bury outscored their rivals by 25-9 in the quarter to take a 14-point lead into the final period.

Knowles stepped up his passing game, consistently finding the open man. Ergoli Togo also weighed in for Bury, hitting a foul line jumper.

Nichols added another three-pointer and Balciunas hit a foul shot to extend the lead to 20.

Elliot Smith held his own, gaining strong position in the post and Bart Szareko made his presence felt.

St Helens still had some fight in them and went on an 11-4 run to cut the lead to 11 points with three minutes remaining.

But the Blue Devils steadied the ship, with a Balciunas score and another Stainton three-pointer.

And Greene used his quick first step and athleticism to get to the basket under pressure for a spectacular double pump score to put the game out of reach.