Categories: Basket Ball

FIBA Africa Zone 3 Women Qualifiers: Customs edge ASPAC Of Benin Republic 65-48

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Female Basketball Team on Monday night in Abuja edged past their counterparts ASPAC Female Basketball Team from Benin Republic by 65-48 points at the ongoing FIBA Africa Zone 3 Qualifier at the MO Basketball Arena in Zone 5.

The Border Girls, as the Nigeria Customs Ladies are called, displayed dominance to the delight of the home crowd from start to finish to grind a good result that has now put them in good stead to pick a ticket for the final round qualifications to take place at the FIBA Africa Women’s Basketball League in Egypt between December 11 to 18, 2023. The Customs Ladies won the first quarter 24-14 points as well as the second quarter which ended 31-23 points.

The Border Girls continued their winning streak in the third quarter with 52-31 and finally went on to win by 65-48 points in the last quarter of the game. With the win, the NCS team will now on Tuesday play their second game as they face Olukoya Girls of Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) who lost their first game 48-53 points to ASPAC.

Tribune Sports reports that only two teams will pick the tickets at stake when the round of matches has been concluded on Tuesday.

Customs coach, Abdulrahman Mohammed, said his players were game-rusty going into the encounter. He said they had to struggle because the Benin Republic team already had a match earlier before his team.

“We are a little bit game rusty. ASPAC is one game ahead of us. Since after the Final 4 Lagos, we’ve not played any competitive basketball. So it’s just normal that when you play your first game, you are bound to struggle because you are trying to brush up all the rough edges.

“They had one game ahead of us and I’m not trying to undermine them, I want to give them credit they played very well. We’re one game behind and that’s why we have to struggle.

“We expect a tough match tomorrow against MFM. They beat us back in Lagos. We are going to look at the game they played yesterday (Sunday) on the tape and from there we’ll know how it will go.”

The chairman, Local Organising Committee (LOC) who also doubles as Sports Secretary of the Nigeria Customs, Secretary Samuel Onikeku, described the game against ASPAC as a tough one. He added that Customs will put all efforts against MFM tomorrow to secure the ticket.

“The game was good. It was great. This is our first game after a lot of practice and there is a difference between practice and playing the real game. We were able to put our acts together and I believe that our next match tomorrow (against MFM) will be better. There will be cohesion and they will perform better than they did today even though we had a good game and won our match.

“Against MFM, we’ll still continue to play well. We just want to use this tournament as a preparation for the African qualifiers in Egypt. So the team will have more opportunities to play together. We’ve beefed up our team so playing against MFM tomorrow is another opportunity for the team to play together, practice more and prepare very well for Egypt.”

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