Basketball in Africa

Former Africa Champions Cup for Women winners, Nigeria's First Bank Basketball Club yesterday opened their campaign in the championship's zone-3 qualifiers with an emphatic 105-31 defeat of Energie Basketball Club of Benin Republic.

The Elephant girls showed no mercy as they took their opening day opponent to the cleaners in all four quarters, with Nigeria senior national team All Africa Games silver medal winner and Afrobasket bronze medalist Nkechi Akashili posting the championship's high of 38 points.

First Bank tutored by Coach Peter Ahmedu won the four quarters with scary figure while restricting the Cotonou-based Energie to a single digit in all the quarters.

The opening quarter was almost a family affair with the Nigerian side leading by 9-4 points in the opening five minutes before pulling away to win the quarter by 17-04 points.

First Bank the most decorated Nigerian women club with two African titles in 2003 and 2009 gave their opponent a bitter pill to swallow when the won the remaining three quarters by 29-09, 33-09 and 26-09 points respectively for a final score-line of 105-31 points.