United States International University (USIU) Flames and Twende have qualified for the finals Half Court tournament following their weekend victory at the Nairobi qualifiers hosted at the USIU grounds.
With the national finals set for June 1st at the Uhuru Gardens, USIU took home advantage to shine over opponents ahead of the world finals that will be held in New York, USA.
Played in round robin, Flames proved to be too strong to be the strong team by winning all their matches leading by nine points ahead of Rim Culture who emerged second after losing one game to the Flames 14-4 making the second team that will join the Flames in the national finals.
The international experience of the Flames came into play in the matches and was evident as they outscored their competitors heavily in the competition with their lowest score being 12 points against the Storms who only managed 6 past them.
Flames captain Angelina Aluet revealed that they had trained well for the competition knowing very well that the level of competition was going to be very high.
“We did our best in training to prepare for this game and I am sure and the score speaks for itself on how prepared well for this competition. We are grateful to Red Bull for this competition that seeks to involve more women in Basketball,” said Aluet.
The men’s game had familiar names challenging for the top spot notably Twende, Avengers, Kabals and Flamers. The group games were a show of experience and domination with the teams to watch stepping up to their names.
Twende cruised easily through their group stages to meet their first worthy competitor at the quarter finals in Four Cousins.
Twende started the final slowly against the Flamers a bit weary of their expertise in long drives. The first two minutes played out to a lot of technical fouls from both ends. However, Twende picked pace as the game continued with the scores with a minute to spare in the game at 11-4. From here onwards they managed the game with confidence with the final scores at 12-5.
George Omondi a member of Team Twende attributed their win to their experience in the competition.
“We knew we were favorites for this competition because most of us had represented the country in international competitions but we had to watch the semis well to know how to play well because 3 on 3 is a tough competition.”