BRADFORD Dragons overturned an 18-point last-quarter deficit only to be stunned by a last-second buzzer beater from the halfway line.

Worthing Thunder led 72-54 at the end of the third quarter but the hosts mounted a superb comeback to lead by two points in their English Basketball Men's Division One clash before Milton Chavis hit the jackpot from distance to deny Bradford victory.

Dragons captain Vance Silcott was still away on international duty and top scorer Rihards Sulcs was consigned to the bench, having missed training with food poisoning.

However, following the recent additions of Jeremee Davies, Chris McGrew and Nathan Ashley, the home side should have had sufficient firepower to see off their visitors, who had only seven players.

Bradford had the better of the opening exchanges and soon opened up a six-point advantage, with Davies hitting all nine points. However, Worthing replied with a nine-point unanswered run before the Dragons revived to lead 18-17 at the end of the first quarter.

In the second period, Worthing went on a ten-point streak, only for Davies to score eight of his own, but that was not enough for the hosts to be in front at half-time, Thunder having a 42-35 advantage.

If that was bad enough, it paled into insignificance as Worthing scored 30 points in the third quarter to lead 72-54.

The Dragons looked dead and buried but incredibly they turned the game on its head.

With only 75 seconds remaining on the clock, Bradford coach Chris Mellor called a time-out with the scores at 80-80, and Davies then hit a further two points to put the game in their control.

However, with only seconds left, the same player missed the opportunity to put the game out of Worthing’s reach, and it was then that Chavis threw the ball from the halfway line as the clock was counting down the final second.

As soon as the ball left his hands, there was no doubt where it was going as victory was snatched from the home side at the death.

Davies top-scored for the Dragons with an impressive 34 points, followed by Miguel Lorenzo with 16. For Worthing, Chavis finished on 25, while Louis Allen scored 18 and Henry Rivers 17.

Point guard Davies said: “We did some good things. We came out and played hard but hit a dry spell in our offence during the second and third quarters, so that’s definitely something we’ll spend time working on during the weeks to come.

"It’s disappointing to lose in the manner that we did. However, there are a lot of positives that we can take from this. We will go back to work this week and prepare to get a win against Leicester next Saturday.”

Mellor said: “It was tough to lose in that fashion right at the end, especially after coming back from 19 points down. But defensively, giving up 83 points is not what we are about and that end of the floor is where we will be putting in the work this week.”

Elsewhere for the Dragons, the under-16s enjoyed a 95-64 home victory against Trafford, while the under-18s beat York Vikings 76-65.