The Kenya Ports Authority men’s team were bundled out of the
Fiba Zone Five Basketball Club Championships after losing the second
match 74-68 to Uganda’s Tiger Head Power at the Amahoro Indoor Courts in
Kigali on Tuesday night.
The Dockers, who had lost
82-52 to Gezira from Egypt in the opening match on Sunday before winning
their second game against Southern Sudan’s NFEL 89-61, started strongly
against the Ugandan’s, leading 15-14 in the first quarter and 22-17 in
the second for a 37-31 half time lead.
Evans Letting,
Kevin Kigotho, Aruu Ramadhan and Valentine Nyakinda had a good afternoon
combining well for easy points in the paints.
The
Ugandans however, resorted to a congested match-up defence which the
dockers could not penetrate and caught them on the counter-attack to win
23-14 and 20-17 in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
POWER THROUGH
The win assured the Ugandans a semi-finals berth after they beat Rwanda’s CSK 70-64 in an earlier match.
Francis
Kasida emerged the top point’s scorer with 18 points while Evans
Letting and Aruu Ramadhan had 15 points each for KPA who were due to
play CSK Rwanda in a dead rubber on Wednesday.
In the
women’s matches, Kenya’s United States International University (USIU)
beat APR of Rwanda 75-35 to increase their chances of retaining the
title.
USIU led 13-5 in the first quarter and never
looked back with a 12-10, 26-05 and 19-12 wins in the remaining quarters
to seal the victory.
Georgia Adhiambo scored 19 points
while Sarah Chan and Melisa Akinyi managed 12 and nine points
respectively. Sandra Rehema top scored for APR with 14 points.
In
other matches played on Tuesday, Kenya’s Ulinzi Warriors (men)
recovered from their disastrous start to the Championships with a 94-64
victory over Tanzania’s Savio in their second match.
The Kenyan soldiers raced to a 25-12 first quarter lead before increasing the scores to 29-16 for a 54-28 half time score.
Tiberius
Menya, Eric Mutoro, Anthony Bwire and William Ochieng were impressive
as they won the third quarter 34-12, and 21-19 in the fourth for a 94-64
full time result.
Mutoro led the scorecard with 18 points while Bwire and William Ochieng scored 14 and 12 points respectively.
“I
am happy for this win as it puts us back into contention for the
trophy,” an elated Ulinzi coach William Balozi had said after the match.
