MONROVIA (Liberia) - Debutantes in the Women's Basketball League Africa (WBLA) Qualifiers Friend's Basketball Association (FBA) of Cote d'Ivoire and the MFM Queens of Nigeria on Saturday secured their places in the Final Round of the event billed for Dakar, Senegal in December.
The two games of the day at the Samuel Kayon Doe Arena in Paynesville in Liberia were expected to give fans plenty of excitement because of the tickets at stake.
All semi finalists had their sights on the bigger picture and none wanted to be left out of the big showpiece in Dakar.
Below is how it turned out.
FBA run over Energie BBC
FBA made their game against Benin champions Energie look more like a training session that ended 77-29.As a relatively new entrant in the Zone 3 Qualifiers making it to the Final Round says a lot about the FBA philosophy.
Coach Lemou Pape Benga from the tip off of the game did not give any room for errors against Energie by ensuring wins in all four quarters 24-9, 22-6, 19, 19-9 and 12-5 while forcing them into 29 turnovers.
As was the case in previous games, Berthe Seran led the floor with 19 points, Tounkara Djelika 15 points, Konate Aminata 12 points and Sangare Makoro with 12 points.
Captain of FBA Grace Tolo told FIBA.basketball that she is happy for her team's qualification to Senegal. "It was an interesting game not minding the score. Many believe we had an easy game but that was not the case. The result everyone has seen is because we played to the instructions of our coaches. We thank God for this win and can look forward to representing the Zone well. It will be expensive but we hope that the right funding will be there for us.”
Coach Benga said the team is still a work in progress and is proud the time spent putting the girls together is not wasted.
MFM Queens snatch late win over Customs
The second Semi-Final game between Customs and MFM Queens had all the trappings of a championship final from the beginning to the end with MFM taking a late victory of 57-53 to the stun Coach Mohammed Abdulrahman-led Nigeria Customs side.
For a game that had six lead changes and three ties, Customs were on the driving seat from the resumption of the second half and were at some point in the game up by 11 points less than 2 minutes on the clock.
How they gave up that lead is still a mystery to Coach Abdulrahman whose players had gassed out with scores at 53-51 in Customs' favour with 1:18 seconds on the clock. With just 58 seconds left, it was a 3-point shot from Idubamo Beggi that changed the narrative to give MFM a 54-53 lead.
They held on tight with 9 seconds left and finished off the game from the free throw line courtesy of fouls on the part of Customs.
It was obvious that fatigue had set in on the players of Customs with the American players Tynice Martin injured and restricted to just 7 points and Kourtney Perry managing only 8 points in the game.
However, it was Tobiloba Ogedengbe who managed to lead the floor for Customs with 15 points followed by Gloria Omale with 10 points.Idubamo Beggi, who featured for Nigeria at the U18 Championship in South Africa, stated after the game that MFM kept going forward to push for victory and it paid off.
Beggi, who contributed with a game-high 18 points noted: "We're grateful to God for this victory and I want to specifically thank my teammates that kept encouraging me to take the shot which pulled us out of the fire.
“This is a victory that means so much to us Knowing that last year in Abuja, we went to Customs in a situation that meant we didn't make the trip to Egypt.
Cynthia Gbihi added 14 points for MFM.
For Coach Ochuko Okorogun Lawal, she confessed that the win was nothing short of a miracle.
"Nothing seemed to work for us in the game. Our shots were not dropping, our passes were bad but we just kept going and at the end we secured the Final Round ticket. Next for us is the Zone 3 final and I want to have a taste of being champions before heading to Senegal.”
FIBA