KPA blames weak squad for regional title loss

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) women basketball team will be focusing on strengthening their squad after failing to defend the FIBA Africa Zone Five Club Championship, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania last week.

For the third year running, Kenya won the title with Equity Bank humiliating KPA 70-54, a sweet revenge for the bankers who had lost in last year’s final against this edition’s finalists.

KPA head coach Antony Ojukwu now concedes Equity were in a better position to clinch the title after some of their finest players ditched them just before the championship kickoff.

“We lost to a better team. It was hard to build a team in 10 days after losing our key players, a few days to the tournament. We will embark on strengthening our team to ensure we maintain our command in the country and in the region,” offered Ojukwu.

KPA lost Betty Kananu and Seline Okumu to Equity and Felmas Koranga who went to United States of America, just  before the championship began.

Equity dominated the first three quarters 24-17, 19-9 and 20-15 before going down in the last quarter 7-13.

Having defeated KPA 48-42 on  September 15  this year for the first time in two years in the premier league, Equity confirmed their new dominance over them with the resounding win despite a fine run by the Dockers against the rest of the regional competitors.

While Equity won all their six matches played in the round of robin series, KPA beat all other rivals only to bow to their Kenyan counterparts.

In their first match Equity defeated UCU of Uganda 71-57 before humiliating home team JKT 69-48.

The fantastic form was extended against APR of Rwanda with a 70-46 victory before sinking Welkite of Ethiopia 68-27, and finally outshining KPA 70-54.

In men category KPA finished fourth after losing 71-74 to REG of Rwanda in play offs.

KPA head coach Sammy Kiki was happy with the results despite the loss.

“We played well. It’s just that we started badly, it was a tough competition, we would have gotten position three but generally I’m happy with the performance of the team,” Kiki said.

In the men’s final, it was an all Egyptian affair as Al-Ahly took on Smouha, the former winning narrowly 98-97.

Al-Ahly had defeated REG of Tanzania in semi final whereas Smouha had won 81-57 against KPA.

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equity bank Kenya Ports Authority Antony Ojukwu FIBA Africa Zone Five Club Championship women basketball team

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