By Sports Reporter/Doha
El Jaish powered ahead in the last five minutes to eeke out a narrow 74-69 win over Al Arabi in their Qatar Basketball League match at Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday.
The two teams were neck-and-neck with Arabi leading by a solitary point at 63-62 five minutes from time. Jaish offence got their act together to down 12 points as against Arabi’s six to snatch their second victory in as many games. In Jaish’s first match of the league, they had beaten Al Wakrah 111-89.
Shawn Taggart continued his impressive performance for Jaish, having followed up his 28-point effort against Wakrah with a team-high 21 yesterday.
Taggart dunked eight two-points, a three-pointer and two free-throws, and notched up 10 rebounds.
Vernon Macklin and Kelvin Parker pitched in with 17 and 12 points respectively for the winners.
Arabi’s Mansour Elhadary scored a match-high 22 even as his team eventually fell short. Elhadary’s numbers were the same as Taggart but managed an extra free-throw.
Courtney Pigram added 17 to Arabi score while Drago Pasalic and Kevin Rogers scored 15 points each.
In the other match of the day, Al Shamal were led to an 87-81 win over Al Wakrah by Mohamed Kamal Hachad, who dunked 34 points.
Hachad scored 10 two-pointers, three three-pointers and five free-throws besides claiming 11 rebounds to lead his team to victory.
The Shamal player was tied with Wakrah’s Calvin Cage for points but the latter was not able to see it through along with his team-mates.
Hachad was ably supported by Jonathan Avery (20 points), Malcolm White (14 points) and Abdulrahman al-Muftah (10 points).
For Wakrah, the other players to get into double figures were Adamu Saaka (24 points) and Donald Singleton (14 points).
The league is in action again on Saturday with Al Sadd taking on Qatar Sports Club in the early match at 5pm, while Al Rayyan will face Al Khor at 7pm.
Sadd and Rayyan will be keen to continue their early league success having posted wins against Al Ahli and Qatar SC respectively.
El Jaish’s Shawn Taggart (left) in action against Al Arabi during their Qatar Basketball League match yesterday. Taggart scored 21 points in Jaish’s 7
