By Sports Reporter/Doha

Al Sadd edged Al Rayyan 55-50 to win their Qatar Basketball League playoff at the Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday.
In a thrilling encounter Al Sadd surged ahead in the final quarter by scoring a whopping 17 points, while Al Rayyan were restricted to 13, which proved crucial to the match. Al Rayyan squandered a three-point advantage they had at the end of the second quarter (24-21) as Al Sadd took a 38-37 lead at the end of the third quarter to sniff victory.
And they built on it with an all-out attack in the final 10 minutes to finally score what was a comfortable victory. Abdi Suliman and Bangura Alpha excelled for the winners with 15 points apiece, the former stealing the show by draining three three-pointers. Veteran Daud Moosa  was not too far behind as he scored a crucial 10 points, while Benjamin Southall had eight. For al Rayyan, Yaseen Ismail was the star with 17 points while Jurica Zuza scored 16 and Boney Watson had 12.
In the second playoff of the day, Al Gharafa registered a hard-fought 86-80 win over El Jaish. It was a creditable show by the Gharafa hoopsters, who after taking a 15-12 lead in the first quarter, hung on to the slender lead till the last. The second and third quarter followed a similar pattern, with Gharafa increasing the lead to six points (35-29 in the second and 57-54 in the third).
Blair Larry Thomas was the top scorer for the hosts with 41 points. Adako Emmanuel Osaro scored 15 points, while Abdulrahman Sadd and Spates Ward scored 12 points each for the winners. The big efforts for Jaish came from Shawn Larell (21 points) and Downey Devan Deangelo (23 points).