By Danotzki Santos
DOHA: Al Sadd overpowered Al Rayyan, 71-61 in the Qatar Basketball League at Al Gharafa Indoor Arena, yesterday.
The result means that the reigning Emir Cup champions had to settle for second place in the QBL standings, after Al Rayyan’s better record this season.
Al Rayyan will face Eljaish while Al Sadd will square off with Al Arabi on February 5 when the best-of-five-semi-finals stage of the league begin.
Al Sadd took the first period, 18-12 as Michael Benjamin Southall and Thomas Ibrahim lorded the shaded area and dominated the boards.
The blackshirts continued to dominate their counterparts in the second period.
Mousa Daoud and Chris Dela Rosa led the line as Al Sadd went up to their biggest lead at 31-17, with 3:40 to the mid-game ceasefire.
Al Rayyan, who defeated Eljaish 75-65 six days ago in their last QBL match, broke the passing lanes and came up with a 7-2 flurry behind Targuy Ngombo to cut the deficit at 33-24, with 2:04 in the period.
The two teams would exchange baskets there on, settling down at 38-28 in favour of Al Sadd after 20 minutes of play.
Al Rayyan came out blazing at the onset of the third canto and with Targuy Ngombo finding his range during the match.
Harold Boney Watson was also able to extricate through Al Sadd’s defence wth the reigning QBL champions beginning to get back in to match.
Al Rayyan climbed back and inching their way to within a basket at 51-49 before the start of the final period.
In the fourth quarter of the match, Southall led Al Sadd’s 6-0 onslaught at the pushing Al Sadd a bit farther at 57-49.
Meanwhile, Al Arabi sailed smoothly towards a 68-53 win at the expense of Al Ahli, to notch their 11th win of the season, in the earlier match that was played at Al Gharafa Indoor Hall.
Yesterday’s result puts them in third place in the team standings and which set up a semi-final clash against Al Sadd which took second best in the QBL team standings.
Al Arabi stalwart Mansour Elhadary and ace guard Abdulai Jalloh set up the stage for Arabi’s early control of the match as the duo combined for 21 of their team’s 41-point output as against Ahli’s 25 in the first half.
THE PENINSULA
