by Danotzki Santos
Doha: Al Rayyan brushed aside a lacklustre first half and came out strong in the last two periods to seal an 85-77 win over Al Arabi that sent the powerhouse club unto the semifinal round of the Emir Cup basketball by virtue of topping Group 2 with an unblemished four wins in the preliminaries.
Al Arabi had a big first half as they clobbered Al Rayyan, 45-36, with Mathew Rogers and Alvin Mofunanya outplaying their counterparts and came out with a combined output of 27 points and 13 rebounds in the first 20 minutes of play.
Al Rayyan would wake up in the third period as Tanguy Ngombo and Jeremeo Davidson went on a scoring run to pull the Heir Apparent champions out from the 9-point deficit to a 63-57 margin.
Boney Harold Watson, Yaseen Mousa and Erfan Saeed helped out to preserve the win in the pay-off period.
Davidson finished with 21 points, Ngombo had 18 and Erfan 16.
Meanwhile, Qatar Club pulled a fast one over Al Gharafa in the final quarter of the first game and ran away with an 85-81 victory to tie the latter and Al Arabi with a 2-2 slate in Group 2.
Al Gharafa were leading in the early quarters, 27-18, 44-38 and 64-63 until Qatar Club’s Lamont Leslie, Eugene Moliva and Antonio Anderson conspired to unleash a 16-5 assault from a 67-68 deficit to establish an 83-73 advantage going into the last 2 minutes of the match.
Coach Hatem Koussay and his boys would then mount an 8-5 last ditch stand but ran out of time.
Leslie had a whopping 36-point output while Moliva and Anderson had 15 each.
The quarter-final round knock-out matches will be played on April 9, with Group 1 second best Al Ahli meeting the declared third best in Group 2, while Group 1 third-placer Eljaish will pit wares versus the second-place finisher in Group 2.
The Peninsula
