Elephant Girls lift City league, pockets N.07m

The Adewumi Aderemi tutored side defeated Dolphins basketball club by 81-59 points (25-16), (17-16), (20-06) and (19-21) to cart home the star prize of N70, 000, a trophy and medals for each of the players and officials.

To reach the final the African Women Club Championship reigning queen defeated Nigeria Customs (female) basketball club by 86-41 points (23-05), (18-09), (23-16) and (22-11) while second placed Dolphins who defeated the Elephant Girls sister team, Blue Angels basketball in the second semi-finals played Wednesday by 63-54 points (21-09), (13014), (21-17) and (08-14) went home with a cash prize of N45, 000, trophy and medals.

Blue Angels won the third place prize with 57-45 points (12-07), (18-16), (12-18) and (15-08) win over the Customs were N25, 000 richer in addition to the trophy and medals won. An elated LSBBA chairman, Babs Ogunade promised lovers of the game that the city league is one among the numerous championship that the association will staged in the tenure of the present board, he, however, appealed to spirited individuals and corporate organization to rally round the association in repositioning the sport in the Centre of Excellence and by extension the entire country.

“We shall remain committed and focused in our drive to reposition basketball in Lagos State thereby making the state a model that could be followed by other states of the federation” Ogunade stated.

Dolphins chairman, Wale Aboderin congratulated the LSBBA for a job well done, the basketball administrator says, the Ogunade led board has pointed the way forward for female basketball in Nigeria.

According to the Dolphins boss, there has been no time in the history of female basketball in Nigeria that teams were rewarded to the tune of what the LSBBA doles out to the winners of the city league, he therefore call on the Nigeria basketball ruling body, NBBF to emulate the LSBBA in rewarding teams.

Elephant Girls head coach; Aderemi says the semi-finals and final came at the right time for his two teams, which placed first and third. He opined that the championship has reinvigorate the energy of his girls ahead the second phase of the national division-one competition of the NBBF schedule to hold between August 27 and September 3 in Lagos and the final-6 billed for September 10 to 16 in Abuja.

It would be recalled that the quartet of Elephant Girls, Dolphins, Blue Angels and Customs qualified for the semi-finals after a rigorous eleven weeks regular games from the pool of six teams that took part in the league which dunksoff on May 31 this year.