Basketball in Africa

Faith Wear Jammers tore the form book to beat HBA A league runner-up Sigauke 51-49 in the HBA Easter Tournament. Jammers coming in with their two foreign based players Michael Makanda who is based South Africa and Michael Koffe based in Botswana showed intent early in the tournament. They were top of their group after a 3-way tie between them, Stanbic Mavericks and Stormers. Their 58-64 loss to newly promoted Stanbic Mavericks in the preliminary rounds was a good wake-up call for Jammers. From then on Jammers never looked back going through the opposition like a warm knife through butter.

In the final against highly fancied Sigauke, Jammers Michael Koffe and Michael Makanda shared top-scoring honours with 16 points apiece. Koffe was hot in the first 2 quarters but down the stretch in crunch time Makanda took over and Sigauke could not stop him. In the absence of Baldwin Bodza Mazango and Tawanda Yanga Chitsinde, Sigauke were a pale shadow of themselves and never really looked in it.

Stanbic Mavericks reversed the preliminary stage defeat to JBC when they beat JBC 49-36 in the final with Dorcas Marondera and Regina Chisale unstoppable. Marondera top-scored with 15 points and Chisale added 11 points. Chisale came up really big down the stretch as she made free throw after free throw as JBC tried to come back. JBC had beaten Stanbic 35-32 in the preliminary rounds but even then Stanbic showed intent.