Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Dar es Salaam men and women sides continued to excel at the ongoing CRDB Bank Basketball Taifa Cup tournament, which is gaining momentum at the Chinangali Park courts in Dodoma.
The men’s side dubbed ‘Dream Team’ early on Monday defeated Kigoma by 91- 61 points to become the first side to have the guaranteed place in the knock out stage. ‘Dream Team’ has won three games against Coast Region, Pemba and Kigoma, bagging six points.
They have a game in hand against Shinyanga in group B. On the other hand, Dar ladies commenced their title defence campaign with a bang after registering 77-25 points victory over Mwanza. Dar ladies were too good for Mwanza to stop them, as they dominated the game from the start, making the encounter a one sided.
The team won the previous edition also hosted in the capital city. Tumaini Dosi, Khadija Kalambo and Diana Katembo excelled in the game, which saw Dar earning a 20-2 points victory in the first quarter, before registering a 19-9 and 18-6 points respectively in the second and third quarter.
They concluded the final quarter with a 20-8 points win. Dosi and Kalambo scored 20 and 15 points for Dar es Salaam respectively, with Dosi also grabbing eight rebounds, while Katembo had 19 rebounds. For Mwanza, Carren Stanslaus scored eight points.
The next game will see Dar ladies battle it with Arusha before winding up their group stage campaign against CRDB Youth in group B. In another ladies discipline games Mbeya outshined Tanga by 55-32 points in group C. Mbeya banked on their experienced players Neema Kibonde, Juliana Samuel to sink their opponents.
In men’s category, Iringa saw off Tabora by 78-53 points in group C game. Iringa took the two first quarters with 22-18 and 26-10 points respectively, as their opponents woke up in the third quarter to tie 15-15. Iringa’s Jovin Ngowe netted 22 points while his teammate Edgar Mwakasendile scored 16 points.
Tabora’s Abbas Ismail netted 13 points, followed by Paul Frank who netted nine points. Meanwhile, the tournament organiser Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF) has revoked Dodoma victory over Arusha due to failure of the hosts’ side to abide with some of the tournament’s regulations.
Dodoma are pooled in group D that comprises Morogoro, Simiyu, Tanga and Arusha. The tournament quarter finals will be held on Friday and semifinals will take place on Saturday whereas the finals will be staged on Sunday.
The second edition of the CRDB Bank Taifa Cup 2021 will see the winners for both men and women’s categories bagging 5m/-each, while the runner ups will collect 3m/- respectively.
The Most Valuable Player (MVP) will take home 500, 000/-. Teams which will make it into the semifinals will be awarded 500,000/- each, while team which will cruise into the finals will pocket 1m/- each.
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