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By Joe Apu
Nigeria Customs Service Women Basketball team came back strong after its quarterfinal loss in the Africa Women Basketball League holding in Alexandria, Egypt by taking down Cameroon OverDose Up-Station basketball club 67-58 in one of the classification games on Monday at the City Arena in Alexandria.
The Border girls opened the first quarter with a point lead 18-17 but extended the lead in the second period by 23-11 points for a 13-point advantage going into the halftime break (41-28), this was reduced to just three points when the Yaounde-based side refused to bark down but Coach Abdulrahman Mohammed and his team put everything in the final quarter to finally subdue the OverDose side for a final score line of 67-58 points thus setting up a 5-6 placement battle against Equity Bank Hawks of Kenya on Tuesday.
Again, it was Nkem Akaraiwe that stole the show with a game high 28 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal to lead the floor.
“Our biggest problem is inconsistency. In some matches, we started energetically then fade away like we did today and in others, it was the opposite. We have to work on that before the final match. A fifth place after over two decades of no continental competition will mean a lot for the team and I hope we can come out and compete,” coach Abdelrahman Mohammed said after the match.
Meanwhile, Equity Bank had a much easier match against another Cameroonian side, Universite de Doula (UDLA), playing for a 75-54 victory.
Equity Bank, who played the first classification of the day against the varsity side, took a two-point lead in the opening five minutes of the game, a lead they extended to seven as the period ended 18-11.
A second quarter 19-12 performance saw the Benson Oluoch-led side head to the break with a 14-point advantage at 37-23. A 17-11 third quarter sealed the win for the Kenyan side as a final quarter score of 21-20 in favour of the Cameroonians did little to change the final result as Oluovh’s charges won by 21.
Judith Pantaleo had another good game, putting up 13 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block, scoring 8 in the first half to lead the side’s offense as Melissa Otieno and Vetty Kananu added 12 and 11 respectively for the win.
