King & Queen of the Court throws off
The K5 million G.Y Imports & Exports King & Queen of the Court National Basketball Tournament threw off in Lilongwe at the weekend.
National basketball champions Bricks and Zomba-based Magang’a swept aside their Central Region opponents to book themselves semi-final berths against surviving Lilongwe giants Trojans and Bravehearts respectively.
Bravehearts Men were the first to book a semi-final slot after seeing-off Northern Region champions Nkhulande 74-33 at African Bible College (ABC) indoor court Saturday evening.
Blantyre-based Bricks defeated Central Region champions Cougars 55-42 in a nerve wrecking affair.
The action continued on Sunday at Civo Court where Magang’a dismissed Mimbulu via a 64-46 margin before Trojans emerged 79-52 victors over Bionets in an all-Lilongwe affair.
However, the talk of the evening was the ladies’ semi-final clash involving Angels and Lady Bricks, which was decided by a 10-minute overtime following a 34-34 tie in normal time.
Angels led the Lady Bricks 34-33 in the last quarter but the Blantyre ladies tied it with seven seconds to go from a free throw. They would have buried it with the second free throw but missed the target to force the game into overtime.
The Lady Bricks picked it up from where they had left in the last quarter leading the Angels by two baskets before the Angels pulled some quick baskets to win the tie by 50-44 baskets.
Daud Hussein, chief executive officer of one of the sponsoring firms Dr Print, who watched the games alongside G.Y Imports & Exports managing director Griffin Kalua, said they were impressed with the standards displayed by the competing teams.
“This is exactly what we were looking for as sponsors and those who thought there is no basketball talent in Malawi will definitely think twice after watching these games,” said Hussein. n
