NAN-S-2
Basketball
By Babatunde Ogunrinde
April 21, 2017 (NAN) Emeka Oputa, Head Coach, Police Batons Basketball Club of Lagos, on says his team’s capacity to excel in the ongoing Kwese Basketball Premier League will be determined by the players.
Oputa made the assertion when he spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos on his team’s defeat of Delta Force of Asaba.
NAN reports that Police Baton defeated hard fighting Delta Force of Asaba, 77-63 to record their first win of the season after losing two games straight.
Oputa said that the result was a booster to their confidence and hopefully, he expects the players to sustain the tempo.
Batons’ physical approach to the game was too much for the young Delta Force team to cope with as they struggled all through the match.
Batons, though lost the first and second quarters of the game, 14-16 and 31-33 to Delta but the Police team fought back to take the third, 45-44 and emerged winners in eventually in the final quarter.
Delta’s slip could be blamed on their size which the Police Batons team capitalised on by becoming physical in their ball plays.
“We have to continue to play like this; we worked very hard to switch the victory because at first Delta Force was dominating the game.
“We are looking forward to the next game and hopefully will also get a favourable result at the end,’’ Oputa said.
His Delta Force counterpart, Peter Broderick, told NAN that his players were relatively smaller in size and were not able to match their opponents physically to record a win.
“We played well but it was not good enough, we are a very young team but very alert to our responsibilities in every game.
“Since it’s our first match we will take the result like that and work harder to get our win in the coming games,’’ Broderick said.
In another match played at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos, Customs beat Rivers Hoopers 60-49. (NAN)
BAO/DS/PDE
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(Editing by Dauda Shehu/Peter Ejiofor)