Horspath Hammers began the defence of their British Premier League title with a 91-79 victory over Leicester Monarchs.

They got off to a poor start, as the first eight heats saw them with a nine-point deficit.

But taking full ad-vantage of a Leicester exclusion, Mark Car-michael and Matuesz Szymczak grabbed a 7-2 to reduce the arrears at the break.

Fine rides from Mark Boaler and Shaun Rud-man and Paul Heard and Chris Osborne levelled the match, before a 7-2 from Chris Timms and Lewis Osborne put Hammers ahead, and they never looked back.

To cap a fine day, Timms defeated holder Lukaz Nowacki to take the match race title.

Horspath scorers: C Timms 16+2pts, M Boaler 15+1, P Heard 14+2, M Szymczak 10+2, C Osborne 10+1, L Osborne 10, M Carmichael 9, S Rudman 7.

l HORSPATH’S defence of the Combination title suffered a setback as they lost 72-59 to Leicester.

Horspath scorers: Z Pane 14, M Coulter 11+2, W Clarke 11+1, J Smith 8+2, M Burgess 8, L Clarke 5.

Tomorrow, Horspath travel to Exeter for the South & South West reg-ional meetings in Divis-ion 1 and Conference.