By Sports Reporter/Doha


Leon Macklin poured in 36 points as El Jaish drew first blood against Al Rayyan in their best-of-three Emir Cup semi-final series at the Al Gharafa Indoor Hall yesterday.
Macklin’s heroics saw Al Rayyan, the most storied team in Qatar, crash to a humbling 104-80 defeat allowing El Jaish to take a significant morale boost into the second game today.
“I have no complaints. We wanted to stamp our dominance in the match early and the boys proved up to the task,” El Jaish coach Dragoslav Milovanovic said.
“We definitely have an advantage going into the second game but that doesn’t mean we are complacent,” he added.
 Macklin also grabbed six rebounds and provided four assists and was ably supported by Ward Spates and Harold Boney Watson who scored 21 and 18 points respectively.
Thirty of Macklin’s 36 points came from field goals, while six were results of free throws. In a statistical quirk, he didn’t get even a single three-point chance during the entire match.
Watson, one of the mainstays of the El Jaish success, scored 12 points from behind the arc and also had 12 assists to his credit.
Spates also excelled from the three-point mark scoring six times out of 12 attempts.
For Al Rayyan, Dominic Davon was the top scorer with 25 points and also provided seven assists. Armond Bolds had 19 while Salem Abdulla and Hassan Mohamed scored 11 each.
In the second match of the day, Al Gharafa thrashed Al Sadd 80-63 with Monroe Samuel Jr scoring a game-high 30 points for the winners.
Al Gharafa had a 20-9 advantage at the end of the first quarter and consolidated further in the second when they led 41-24.
And although Al Sadd showed some fight in the latter stages of the match, it was to no avail as Al Gharafa clinched victory with a lot to spare.
Deangelo Downey scored 16 points for Al Gharafa while Osaro Adako had 14.
Sadd Abdulrahman and Michael Fraser excelled for Al Sadd with 16 and 15 points respectively.
Al Gharafa and El Jaish will look to clinch the series when they take on Al Rayyan and Al Gharafa in the second match tomorrow.



Related Story