JELGAVA, Latvia — The Baltic Basketball League had games here, there and everywhere this weekend.

Five games were played over the weekend, starting of in Valmiera, Latvia on Friday night and ending in Kaunas, Lithuania on Sunday. Most teams featured in the action with little change made in the pecking order by the end of the weekend.

Valmiera started the action of in the best possible manner, defeating visitors Rock 88-74. It is just the second win for the Latvian franchise in this campaign, whilst the loss for Rock sees them slide further down the table. The star for the home-side was Davis Daviin who produced a 25 point, 10 rebound performance in his first game for Valmiera.

The competition then headed north to Estonia where Kalev/Cramo were hosting high-flying Lithuanians Šiauliai. Šiauliai have had little trouble this season to date of disposing of teams outside of the Lithuanian powerhouses so it came as a surprise to see them go down 79-85 to a spirited Kalev/Cramo. The Estonians now move into the top four following the win.

The second game on Saturday saw Lithuanian side Nevėžis pull a rabbit out of the hat to beat Liepājas Lauvas 70-69. Down by as much as four in the final quarter, Nevėžis only managed to hit the winning shot, albeit from the free-throw line with 16 seconds remaining. Liepājas Lauvas would have to be the hard-luck story of the BBL to date with a number of tight results going against them.

Fingertip stuff: Lietuvos Rytas players Donatas Zavackas (14) and Artūras Jomantas (21) try in vein to block the shot of VEF Riga's Martins Laksa (5). Photo by Mikus Kļaviņš and used courtesy of VEF Riga.

In Saturday’s final game, it took Lietuvos Rytas extra time to defend their unbeaten record, beating VEF Riga 93-89. Playing in front of a boisterous home crowd, VEF Riga kept up with the much more fancied Lietuvos Rytas throughout regular time, hitting two free-throws to tie the game up with six seconds remaining. However the big game experience of Lietuvos Rytas prevailed in overtime as they cruised to the extra-time victory.

In Sunday’s only game, it was always going to be hard for Liepājas Lauvas to back up in Kaunas following the heartbreak of the previous day. It did not help that in their opponent they were facing off against an unbeaten Žalgiris. Sure enough Žalgiris made light work of protecting their perfect record as they saw of the Latvian challenge to win 74-63.

This week will see just one game take place when VEF Riga host Rock as home on Saturday evening.