Advantage in offing as final series reaches Game Three

The neutrals will be hoping the series can go down to the wire.

TODAY AT YMCA COURT

W: UCU vs. KCCA (5.30pm)
(UCU lead series 2-0)
M: Warriors vs. Falcons (7.30pm)
(Best of seven series tied 1-1)
DIVISION II
City Oilers vs. Rhino (3.30pm)
(Series tied 1-1)
DIVISION III
Ssaku vs. UMU F. (1.30pm)
(Ssaku lead series 2-0)

Kampala

Two games into the Fuba League playoff best-of-seven final series, there is hardly anything to choose between Warriors and Falcons.

The two-faced dice or game of chess has the finalists tied at 1-1 with Game Three scheduled for today at YMCA court. It started slowly though Falcons won the opener 75-62. A rude awakening was on the cards as Warriors swung the ball masterfully to create open shots.

Best Game
That Game Two 78-66 victory is perhaps the best any team has played as a unit this season.
“There was a lot of desire. We shot the ball a lot better than the first game,” coach Mandy Juruni said.

“The guards contributed a lot defensively.” There was a lot of production on the offensive end too as five players got double figures. Centre Henry Malinga scored a team-high 17 points and four rebounds and guard Ivan Enabu added 15 points, eight steals, seven rebounds and five assists.

Skipper Ronnie Kasewu added 13 whereas Norman Blick and Cyrus Kiviri contributed 12 points each to pile up the scoring column with Blick picking nine rebounds as well. Warriors went 10 for 26 from downtown. Falcons saw this coming but had felt like they could live with their opponent’s shots from outside the perimeter.

“This is a final so when someone beats you, you go back to the drawing board see your mistakes and rectify them,” guard Geoff Omondi said. He had a long night on Wednesday defending Enabu and with his former teammate at UCU Canons trying to take the leadership role, Omondi is bound to work even harder.

Every Falcon repeatedly used the word ‘mistakes’ in their post-mortem. They could have ignored the fact that Warriors are doubling up a lot.

Forward Stephen Omony and centre Philip Ameny, Falcons’ go-to players, are being targeted though it’s unimaginable they could be completely deflated. “They (Warriors) have started to make the series longer but we just have to go work a little harder,” Ameny demanded of his teammates.

In the early women’s game, UCU Lady Canons can maintain their stranglehold of the finals with victory over KCCA Leopards to assume a 3-0 lead.

ikigongo@ug.nationmedia.com