KENYA : Laiser thump Juba for fifth basketball title

Kenya’s dominance in basketball continued on Sunday when Laiser Hill Academy and Tigoi Girls High School won gold medals as the Brookside East Africa Secondary School Games came to an end here in Nakuru.

Debutants New Jogoo Road from Nairobi were also the toast of the day for the hosts after they beat football champions GS Remera from Rwanda 2-1 in an entertaining final at the Afraha Stadium.

Archbishop Njenga, who finished third during this year’s edition, were Kenya’s last winners in 2008.

Silver platter

But while Archbishop Njenga fought for that bronze, Kenya boys champions St. Marks got their bronze on a silver platter, after their would-be opponents, Filbert Bayi from Tanzania were disqualified for “being indisciplined”.

Girls’ basketball champions Shimba Hills relinquished their title to local rivals Tigoi falling 41-40 to a stubborn Western Province side. Tigoi, who are also the national champions, trailed for most of the match, and at one point, it seemed the match was for Shimba’s to lose.

The new champions, however, fought from 31-24 to 31-29 in the third quarter. They took a 33-31 lead in the last quarter and never let go sealing the match 40-41.
Show stopper

The showstopper, however, had to be the final as Laiser Hill got their revenge over the Sudanese who beat them in the preliminary rounds.

“As I had said before the match, we were to take the game to them and that’s just what we did. When we lost against them, it taught us a lot of things,” said an elated Anthony Kirimi, Laiser Hill’s head coach.

Juba led by 18 points at half-time but all that changed in on resumption as Alex Lugasi finished with 24 points for Laiser with four three-pointers. Evans Leting was also on fire hitting four from outside the arc to finish with 16 points.

Both Lugasi and Victor Bosire hit three pointers late in the game as well to give Laiser a 70-34 lead with three minutes to go and the match was long over as a contest by then.

While Nelson Omondi and Lugasi dominated from beyond the arc, Leting was a monster at both ends, as he finished with six boards and five massive blocks and matched up against Deng Wol most of the afternoon.

Bag of points

Majiok Majiok scored 14 points for the visitors and had seven assists and Robert Megistu added 10 points.

Lugasi came out determined to show the Sudanese fans what he can still do and notched a huge first-quarter bag of points including three from long range.

Bosire also put up eight points and Leting five to go with two big early blocks on Majiok to ensure Laiser Hill kept their momentum to lead 38-21 after the first period.

Lugasi, arguably the man-of-the match, hit five quick points to start the second quarter to put the now five-time champions up by 20 points.