Equity silence home side KPA to level final series

Equity Bank beat Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) 56-55 on Sunday in their Kenya Basketball Federation Premier League final play-offs Game Two at KPA Makande Gymnasium to level the series.

The bankers’ victory, in this best-of-five series, was a sweet revenge after they suffered a 62-43 defeat at the hands of the KPA side the previous day at the same venue.

The game went into overtime after the two teams had remained deadlocked 46-46 in normal time.

Equity Bank coach, David Maina, who refused to make any comment after Saturday’s defeat, was the happiest person yesterday saying he was confident his team would finish off the series.

Action shifts to Nairobi for the next three games should the series go the distance.

Maina said they came to Mombasa without experienced Silale Shani who is outside the country.

Shani is expected to be available for Game Three.

“We started the Saturday clash slowly and that is where our opponents took advantage and managed to win but today we went into the offensive from the word go and we succeeded,” he said. 

KPA coach, Anthony Ojukwu said over-confidence cost them the match. “We made a big blunder in underrating our opponents by being over-confident,” he said.

KPA lead the first quarter 14-9 but were outscored 12-11 in the second quarter to lead 25-21 at half time.

The visitors took the third quarter 8-12 before holding out for 13-13 fourth quarter score that tied the game forcing overtime. The bankers kept their cool to secure the game with a one point difference.

KPA’s Felmas Adhiambo top scored with 23 points.

Hilda Indesi emerged the top scorer for Equity with 19 points while colleague Mercy Wanyama added 16 points and Natalie Akinyi 11 points.

KPA men’s team registered a 60-56 victory against Co-operative Bank in Game One of their final Play-offs best-of-five series.