Nigeria’s team to the recently concluded FIBA Africa Women Under-16 Championship, the Junior Tigresses, will return home on Tuesday following their impressive second-place finish in Madagascar.
The Adeka Daudu-tutored team will fly into Lagos by 1 pm aboard a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi, where they have been since Monday following Sunday’s 57-46 final loss to Mali.
Sunday’s final victory was the fourth in succession for the Malians, who have now won all four editions of the championship to date.
But the Junior Tigresses, led by the impressive Rita James, were making their tournament debut and will definitely hold their heads high after limiting Africa’s number one side to just 57 points. The least number of points the Malians had scored prior to Sunday’s final had been the 73 they scored in their quarterfinal victory over Morocco. The Malians averaged 81.85 points per game.
But as was the case in their 54-51 semifinal win over Mozambique, Coach Daudu’s girls, who played the entire tournament with nine players after three players were suspended over age related issues, started out slowly, trailing the Malians 31-17 at the half time break.
“That was our mistake. We gave them the game, as we were very poor in the first half,” Daudu told New Telegraph after Sunday’s final. “The girls were afraid at the start but picked up much later in the game.
“But it was too late then,” added the Dodan Warriors of Lagos coach.
Nigeria, along with Mali, will represent Africa at next year’s FIBA U-17 Championship.
The Adeka Daudu-tutored team will fly into Lagos by 1 pm aboard a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi, where they have been since Monday following Sunday’s 57-46 final loss to Mali.
Sunday’s final victory was the fourth in succession for the Malians, who have now won all four editions of the championship to date.
But the Junior Tigresses, led by the impressive Rita James, were making their tournament debut and will definitely hold their heads high after limiting Africa’s number one side to just 57 points. The least number of points the Malians had scored prior to Sunday’s final had been the 73 they scored in their quarterfinal victory over Morocco. The Malians averaged 81.85 points per game.
But as was the case in their 54-51 semifinal win over Mozambique, Coach Daudu’s girls, who played the entire tournament with nine players after three players were suspended over age related issues, started out slowly, trailing the Malians 31-17 at the half time break.
“That was our mistake. We gave them the game, as we were very poor in the first half,” Daudu told New Telegraph after Sunday’s final. “The girls were afraid at the start but picked up much later in the game.
“But it was too late then,” added the Dodan Warriors of Lagos coach.
Nigeria, along with Mali, will represent Africa at next year’s FIBA U-17 Championship.
No comments:
Post a Comment