Al Gharafa’s Emmanuel Adako (right) tries to score during their Emir Cup basketball playoff match against Al Sadd at Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday. PICTURE: Nasar TK
By Sports Reporter/Doha
Al Gharafa kick-started the playoff stage with a comfortable 70-62 win over Al Sadd in the Emir Cup basketball tournament at Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday.
Gharafa, who topped their group in the group stages of the tournament, are yet to drop a match in the tournament.
The last five minutes of the match turned out to be the most exciting given that only three points separated the two teams at that point (57-54 in favour of Gharafa).
Gharafa scored 13 points in the last five minutes to Sadd’s eight, giving the former a comfortable 12 point victory.
In yesterday’s match, Gharafa were bouyed by some great performances by Eugene Spates, Emmanuel Adako and Larry Blair who scored 19, 17 and 16 points respectively.
Spates had a good run from the three-point arc having scored five of those.
Samuel Monroe Jr. pitched in with 10 points.
For Sadd, Solomon Bozeman was the pick of the players having scored 17 points, while Erfan Ali Saeed and Alpha Bangura added 15 points each.
In the second match of the day, Al Rayyan halted El Jaish’s unbeaten run in the tournament with a 93-73 win.
While the likes of Lamont Jones (27) and Lance Alfred (26) contributed 53 points between themselves for Rayyan, Jaish turned out to be a one-man affair with Shawn Taggart being the only man with a double digit score.
Taggart scored a match-high 33 points with nine two-pointers, a three-pointer and 12 free-throws. But by the end of it all, it was all in vain.
For Rayyan, Yasseen Musa added 13 points and Jermareo Davidson pitched in with 12 points.
On Sunday, Rayyan will face Jaish in the early match at 5:15pm, while Sadd will take on Gharafa in the 7:15pm fixture.
