Basketball in Africa

Coast province’s Shimba Hills High School’s girls basketball team humiliated Manor House from the Rift Valley province 123-9 as this year’s Kenya secondary schools’ term one games started at Kangaru High School on Tuesday.

The championships are sponsored by Brookside Dairies. Shimba Hills, representing the Coast in the absence of last year’s winners, the now disbanded Mombasa High School, outplayed Manor House in all departments as national team forward Purity Odhiambo and Kenya under-18 players Fatma Mohammed, Susan Akinyi and Lucy Ohanga forced a 26-02 lead in the first quarter and 59-05 lead at the break before building the lead to 92-05 at the end of the third quarter.

In the other girls’ matches, St Angela from Eastern hammered North Eastern 117-0. In the boys’ matches, last year’s winners Laiser Hill Academy had an easy time beating Meru School 121-23 to stay on course for a defence of their title.

Vincent Maina led the scores for Laiser with 21 points. Kevin Ominde scored a game-high 31 points to lead St Austin’s Academy to a 78-58 win over stubborn Nyeri High School while Friend’s School, Kamusinga, defeated Maseno School 75-64 and Shimba Hills boys hammered Wajir from North Eastern 148-26.