KPA teams prevail at Chevrolet league

By Erick Ochieng’

Visiting Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) teams from Mombasa won the Chevrolet Friday Night Basketball league matches at Nyayo National Stadium gymnasium, Nairobi.

KPA women hit Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) champions Eagle Wings 66-50 as their men beat Ulinzi Warriors with 89-67 win.

Chevrolet, a brand of General Motors (GM), has sponsored the night league matches including other basketball activities in Kenya to the tune of Sh2 million this year.

 Eagle Wings, coached by veteran Thomas Olumbo, were a pale shadow of themselves during the encounter where both teams contested the first quarter which  KPA narrowly won 13-12.  Laxity in the Eagle Wings’ defence saw KPA sink 23 points against the opponent’s  seven in the second quarter.

Eagle Wings  won the third quarter 16-13 but only to lose  the fourth one 15-17 despite staging a spirited fight.

Samba Mjomba, who featured in the game for 40 minutes scored 16 points for Eagle Wings including two three-pointers, while Yvonne Akinyi registered 16 points including two successful free throws and a similar number of attempts for the winners. She was closely followed by Salma Akinyi (12 points) and Caroline Mureji (10).

talent development

“We decided to  sponsor some of the KBF ties because we support community talent development,” said Ruth Mugugu, GM Sub-Saharan Africa Communications Manager, who added that her company is also sponsoring  rugby, polo, football and golf.

“Chevrolet will continue to support sports in a much bigger way next year,” added Mugugu.

The men’s match pitting KPA and Ulinzi was hotly contested even though Ulinzi lost the quarters 16-23, 17-28, 23-16 and 11-22.

William Ochieng’ had 19 points with Bernard Mufutu adding another 17 for Ulinzi.

But the game’s high came from Abel Nson who netted 30 points, while Martin Gitonga scored 15 for KPA.

Apart from Chevrolet other sponsors who came on board to make the Friday Night Basketball a sucess included 1FM and Code Red Djs.

“This is just but a start, we have bigger things in store including making the second KBF national awards that we sponsored bigger and better this year,” said Code Red  CEO Allan Muigai aka DJ Styles.