FCT Angels have become clearly the whipping team as the Zenith Bank Female League continues at the Murtala Muhammed Square in Kaduna. It was another losing day on Monday as the Abuja based ladies were beaten 53-52 by the Nigerian Immigration team – another club that is struggling to find the right rhythm in the national competition.
Before the Abuja based ladies lost their game on Monday, they had lost the first four played since the competition began last Thursday. The coach of the team Emmanuel Odah told our reporter in Kaduna that his team lost to inexperience.
“We lost to inexperience. You could see that some could not even shoot right under the basket. Some of the players have not even played the Milo Secondary School competition which explains the fact that the Zenith Bank League is still a big stage for them. We lost three players to AHIP, First Bank one and at the end we had to replace five key players going into this competition. Many are actually from our junior programme but we had no choice but to throw them in,” Odah said.
But even in their loss, Vera Achi of FCT stood out with 22 points as the highest scorer on both sides but her 11 turnovers and shooting percentage left some much to worry about. Before that match which was the third of the day, AHIP Queens who still basking from their Sunday night demolition of the Immigration by 62-32 points filed out against Plateau Rocks of Jos and beat the cold city ladies 62-40.
The second match of Monday was between champions First Bank and Customs. Experts had correctly predicted that the Bankers would win but nobody could guess that the Customs could play a full quarter just scoring three points. At the end of the second quarter the scores stood at 38-19 and the third quarter ended at 51-23. It was 63-23 with five minutes left before they rallied to hit 10 points. The final result read 69-33.
By Pius Ayinor
FIBA Africa