St. George's Internationals lifted their third consecutive title as they defeated Paget Bearcats 78-62 in The CellularOne Premier Basketball League Finals, held at the Mount Saint Agnes Gymnasium.

St. George's led at the half, 38-31 and never relinquished a lead, which at times grew to 22 points.

Dean Jones scored 24 points to lead the St. George's Internationals, while Chris Crumpler scored 21 points for the Paget Bear cats.

The Most Valuable Player of the Game was Damon Saunders from the St. George's Internationals, who ended with 13 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks and 1 steal.

Internationals' coach Pushkin Douglas was more relieved then ecstatic on his side's victory.

"Our first concern was Chris Crumpler, as he is the best player on the Island," said Douglas. "It wasn't a matter of stopping him, but containing him so he doesn't go off on one of his 30 or 40 point games as he did against us in the regular season.

"We came up with a game plan to figure out how we could slow him down. We had our big men pounding the glass and doing what they normally do.

"The games that we have won this season have been from us doing what we do best, and that is utilise our big men.

"Shaun Knight and Dean Jones did their jobs fantastically, and these two also work very well together.

"We just relied on them to keep the middle clogged and they did this very well."

The regular season wasn't bad for the champions too, boasting the second best record in the league, which included only two losses; one of which was at the hands of the beaten finalists.

"The games we lost during the season, we didn't play to our strengths, which is to pound the ball inside to the big men and attack the glass.

"In our regular season match against Paget, we focused too much on stopping Crumpler and not sticking to our plan.

"That allowed then to run at us, and in the finals we actually set out and stuck to the plan."

"We got a few runs in to get us reacquainted at the beginning of the season and now we can celebrate a trophy for our hard work throughout the season.

"We had a successful season, obviously it is great to end it with a trophy. But if we wouldn't have won on Saturday, we would have still been pleased with what we accomplished."