Doha: Muhammad Yussuf lifted Eljaish to a pulsating 75-73 victory over a stubborn Al Ahli in the Qatar Basketball League at the Al Gharafa Indoor Arena yesterday.
Yussuf scored the decisive basket in the 20 seconds of the extra period to give his team a nerve bitting win.
Back-up pointguard Narwan Salah took over from the ailing Fadi Abilmona and ran the plays for Eljaish with flying colours.
Army took the first half but Al Ahli kept them within striking distance at 31-27.
Al Ahli came out strong in the third quarter and grabbed the lead momentarily at 37-36 with six minutes remaining in the period.
Salah piloted Eljaish’s counter offensive thereon starting of with a 10-4 run to peg a 46-41 advantage before yielding to Ahli’s four straight points to close the quarter still ahead at 46-45. Michael Cook would however lead Al Ahli to a 15-9 assault to rally his team to 59-55 upperhand with 2 minutes remaining in the game.
Both teams fought it out in the dying seconds of the regulation and got locked-up at 63-all to send the game into overtime.
Meanwhile, Al Arabi had an easy time against Al Shamal registering a runaway 80-54 win.
Abdulai Jalloh scored 24 points, hauled down eight rebounds and swiped the ball seven times to cap another sterling performance for Al Arabi.
Games resume tomorrow as Al Arabi go up against Qatar Sports Club in the opener at 4pm while Al Rayyan and Al Gharafa slug it out in the main game at 8pm following the QML sidelight match between forerunning teams in the Pinoy Basketaball Qatar League.
The Peninsula
