BIG Storage Cheshire Jets’ high-flying start to the season stalled at the weekend as they lost both of their BBL Championship encounters.

Paul Smith’s men remain joint leaders, forced to share top spot in a four-way split with Everton Tigers, Newcastle Eagles and Plymouth Raiders.

Sunday saw the Jets fall 97-91 at home to Worthing Thunder, who registered their first win of the campaign.

Despite a 32-point haul form Chez Marks, the Jets were not scoring well from as many position as usual and paid the penalty.

Janis Ivanovskis was the hero for the visitors with 27 points, but the Thunder spread their scoring responsibilities around better than the Jets and exposed the home team’s soft defensive underbelly.

Coach Smith had no complaints about the result.

He said: “It’s disappointing that at a crucial part of the match our defence let us down.

“I was impressed by Worthing and they deserved their victory.”

It was the second major disappointment of the weekend for the Jets as they returned from Sheffield on Friday having lost 109-78 to the Sharks.

It was the Sharks’ first victory of the season as well, and they dominated from start to finish, building 54-32 half time lead.

At 83-54 in the third the Jets faced a tall order in the final 10 minutes, but the Sharks offered them no opening as top scorer Matt Gorman led all scorers with 22 points to carry the Yorkshire side to a win. Marks led the Jets scoring with 21 points.