Brighton Bears are back in winning form on the road and their captain back is in action ahead of a key weekend in the British League title race.

They overturned a nine-point deficit to win 93-88 at Essex Leopards last night with skipper Randy Duck playing his first 17 minutes since recovering from a hernia operation.

Duck looked understandably rusty but coach Nick Nurse was just glad to get him back on court as his men headed off a third successive away defeat ahead of home games with Birmingham tonight (Triangle, 7pm) and Newcastle on Monday.

Nurse admitted: "We were very fortunate to only be down by five at the half the way our individual performances were going but Sterling (Davis) had a big-time second half, Ralph (Blalock) hit some big baskets and I thought Mike (Brown) had another solid game.

"That's another hard game for us on the road and its good to get it over with. Now we've got two home games and we've got to protect our turf."

Davis's 22 points, on eight-of-11 field shooting, all came in the second half and helped put Leopards' big men in serious foul trouble.

Wilbur Johnson's 11 rebounds and nine from Rico Alderson, back on his old home court, helped Bears take that battle 50-32 while Blalock hit three of his team's ten three-pointers.

Duck made his return four minutes in. He was welcomed back by a horrible shin-high pass from Alderson and clearly struggled to begin with but unleashed a three-pointer in the second quarter to open his account.

That quarter, however, belonged to Leopards' star Yorick Williams who hit three three-pointers as his side took a deserved 44-39 half-time lead.

The hosts pushed their advantage back out to nine with 6:51 to go in the third but Davis was now firing.

He hit 13 points in the period, including the three which tied it up at 66-66 going into the final break.

Leopards hit the first four points of the fourth but Bears' response was a decisive 14-1 charge to lead 80-71.

Davis had seven of those points and Blalock guided a three over the leap of home centre David Fisher who fouled out shortly afterwards. Even then Leopards were not finished and got back to within three points in the final 40 seconds before Brown and Duck sealed it from the free-throw line.

Bears scorers: Davis 22, Johnson 19, Blalock 17, Alderson 15, M. Brown 13, Duck 5, Seaman 2.