Al Arabi’s players and officials celebrate after winning the Emir Cup basketball final against Al Wakrah yesterday.
Doha: Al Arabi survived a few anxious moments as they overcame a fighting Al Wakrah 96-88 to win the Emir Cup basketball final in extra time at the Al Gharafa Indoor Stadium yesterday.
At the end of normal period of play, the teams were locked at 75-all and the game had to be decided in overtime, with Al Arabi keeping their cool to emerge on top in the epic clash.
Both the teams took time to settle down. They came to close to scoring and missed out on a few chances to open the points account. Al Arabi, finally were successful in opening the scoring in the eighth minute with W Byrd coming up with a two-point shot to open the points account.
Thereafter, Al Arabi found consistency to take a 8-0 lead.
From thereon, Al Wakrah crawled back to find the basket to bag five points and cut the opponents lead to just three points.
Al Arabi then managed to regroup and were able to find holes in the rival to take the score at 13-5. Al Wakrah fought hard to have the upper hand over the proceedings and were able to score at regular intervals and managed to cut Al Arabi lead to just four points at 20-16 going into the second quarter.
Al Wakrah dominated proceedings in the second quarter and at one stage taking a six-point lead 28-22, but Al Arabi managed to bounce back to equalise at 28-all.
Fortunes continued to fluctuate in the match with the battle for supremacy turning out to be a touch and go affair. Al Arabi managed to hold their wits to take one-point lead at 40-39 into the next quarter.
The third period ended Al Arabi holding on to a three-point lead at 58-55.
The final and decisive period saw Al Wakrah taking the lead twice, but Al Arabi managed to pull back to equalise and go ahead.
But Wakrah pulled back to score and equalise the score at 75-all and take the match into overtime. In the extended period, Al Arabi trailed by two points but managed to draw level and take the lead at 80-78 and thereafter consistently widen the points difference to wrap up the proceedings at 96-88.
For Al Arabi, Nicholas Stover top scored with 29 points while William Earl Byrd and
Khalid Suliman Abdi, both with 25 points each, supported Al Arabi victory charge. Al Wakrah managed to score through Demarius Armond Bolds (38), Earnest Lee Ross Jr (22) and Adamu Saaka(14).
