NAIROBI, Kenya, July 18 – The Kenyan girls team has qualified for the Under-23 3×3 Basketball World Championships scheduled for September in Romania after edging out neighbors Uganda in the deciding match at the Nyayo National Stadium over the weekend.
The Kenyan girls narrowly edged out the neighbors 15-12 to claim the lone spot from the Nations League South Qualifiers.
The Kenyan team is comprised of Madina Okot, Alexandra Juma, Babra Achieng’ and Jackline Kogo and they have vowed to put in their best at the World Show.
“We are really pleased with the win. We had the hunger and we really wanted to do it on home soil so we had to put our best feet forward for this. We looked at the past matches we had played against Uganda and analyzed our mistakes and we picked out one of their strongest players and shut her out,” said skipper Achieng.
“We are delighted to qualify and now we hope to go do well at the World Championships,” she adds.
Coach Tony Ochieng was equally elated.
“I want to say congrats to the girls because they did very well in a tough game. Everyone worked hard to qualify. We had prepared mentally because we looked at the previous matches and Uganda was beating us in the last minute and we needed to maintain a good psychological status to the end and finish strong. We will do our best in Romania,” the tactician stated.
The final series was tied at 2-2 heading into the final game. Uganda had drawn first blood winning the first two games 18-17 and 20-18 before bouncing back to win 18-16 and 20-17 to set up the final decider.
The Kenyan girls had been victorious in the other matches, hitting Rwanda 15-12 in their opener where Okot starred with a last minute three pointer to win the tie and completing a sweep with a 21-15 victory in the second match.
They also completed back to back victories against Botswana winning 21-8 and 22-10 as well as against Benin, winning 21-10 and 16-9.
