Malta started its commitments in the Promotion Cup for men in Albania yesterday with an 87-73 defeat at the hands of Andorra.

At the interval, the Andorrans were 45-33 in the lead. The session scores were as follows: 23-16, 22-17, 22-18, 20-22. As these indicate, the Andorrans always held the edge over the Maltese except for the final session.

Malta's best scorer was Christopher Anthony Sammut with 16 points. K. Baldacchino was next on 11, while Silvio Cassar and Etienne Bezzina scored 10 points each. The other scorers for Malta were Michael Naudi 9, Dirk Schembri 8, Peter Shoults 4, Steve Schembri 3 and Adrian Micallef 2. The other player in the squad was Omar Said.

Daniel Marin Rodriguez was Andorra’s top scorer with 30 points.