20 May 2008

NIGERIA: Pillars End Trip, Yelwa Hawks Win

BY Pius Ayinor
LagoS

Kano Pillars completed their Road Trip matches by the weekend in Lagos with a huge win over Union Bank Club. The game ended 71-67 in favour of the visiting Pillars who spent the whole of last week playing in Lagos.
"We are satisfied the way things happened down here. These players worked and we got a good outing on the road but we'll still have a lot of work to do. My big men could not score and that was a huge problem depending so much on perimeter points to survive," Coach Sani Ahmed of the Pillars said before embarking on the long journey back to Kano.
The Union Bank team is highly rated and so they were clearly pre-match favourites before the jump ball late Saturday. The Lagos team had opened the game as expected by fans at the National Stadium, Lagos but things soon changed when the Pillars Ibrahim Adamu Yusuf opened series of three pointers shooting 10 times eventually with his opponents unable to box him out.
Kano Pillars began the trip last week from Asaba where they were awarded the game over Delta Force. The hosts discontinued with the game at the buzzer with scores at 55-55 and Pillars going to the free throw line. In all Pillars won three matches and lost the same number in the Atlantic Conference.
When the tour moved to Lagos, they also beat Lagos Islanders but lost to the Warriors, the Customs who beat them 38-34 and then lost 70-63 to the Comets. The Comets, however, lost a match three days later to the Lagos Islanders team. The match which was played on Sunday as part of the Lagos City League ended 72-68 for the Comets. It is the second loss for the Comets to the Islanders this season in both the Premier and City Leagues.
In the Bauchi it was a local derby triumph for Yelwa Hawks who defeated Bauchi Nets 65-60 in a match played over the weekend also.
"It was their day. They had a good game and won the match. I believe they are really putting their acts together," Lawan Garba of the Nets told THISDAY.
It was a game highly celebrated by Yelwa fans who want get free of the dominance of Nets at the centre. The Yelwa Hawks team are seen as a stronger team than their city rivals.

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