Rwanda Patriotic Army(APR) men and Eastern Queens women basketball teams are the new Kenyatta Day Basketball tournament champions after defeating Kenya Ports Authority teams in the finals at Jomo Kenyatta Sports grounds in Kisumu over the weekend.
APR defeated KPA men 43-30 in the finals while Eastern Queens beat Kenya champions KPA 40-38 in the finals.
Eastern Queen, who defeated KPA in a league match in Nairobi a fortnight ago, prevailed again over their coastal foes with a spirited fight against the dockers who used the championships as part of the preparations for the Africa Club championships to held in Benin next month.
Queens were without diminutive but inspirational point guard Irene Makori who was left behind in Nairobi with work commitments but were well respresented by Linda Alando,Emma Nyakweba , Hilda Indasi, Emily Ongoro and Mitchell Otinda and led 12-08 in the first quarter,21-19 at the break and 33-30 in the third.
Hilda Indasi led the scores for Queens with 10 points and Emily Ongoro had eight while KPA were propelled by Yvonne Akinyi who had 13 points.
In the semi finals, Eastern Queens hammered Uganda Christian University 46-27 while Kenya Ports Authority beat Mombasa Sports Club 41-19 in the other semi finals.
The men’s encounter was another cracker with APR, coached by Kenyan Cliff Owuor, dominant right from the onset.
Too good
The combination of Bienvenue Ngandu,Presta Malemba, Karim Nkusi and Nikobahoze Blaise was the too good for the KPA first team of the Odari brothers Francis and Musa, Dan Okwiri, Javan Odhiambo and Patrick Kirui.
Ngandu led the scores with 17 points, Malemba had 10 points while Nkusi managed nine. Okwiri scored 10 points for KPA while and Francis Odari had eight. In the semi finals, APR beat Uganda Christian University 64-30 while KPA beat Sprite 54-46.
Earlier, both APR and KPA were giving difficult moments by school teams Maseno school and Upper hill School from Nairobi.
While Maseno who were the darling of the crowd restricted APR to a 45- 28 scores, Upper hill worked overtime to stretch KPA to 61-43 in another encounter.