Four qualify for ZA Neighbourhood Basketball semi-finals

Four teams over the weekend qualified for the Zomba City Neighbourhood versus Neighbourhood Basketball Tournament in energy-sapping encounters played at Chancellor College basketball court.

The teams are Ndola Blazers, St Mary’s Gangsters, Matawale Wild Dogsand Zinkhandwe. The tournament is being bankrolled by Joseph Chikwemba to the tune of K250 000 and attracted seven teams from the city’stownships.

Ndola has been an invincible side throughout the tournament winning all their six games to amass 12 points. St Mary’s finished the group

stages with four wins to accumulate 10 points. In the nerve-wrecking encounters over the weekend, Ndola beat Mpunga Heat by 100 baskets to 61 before walloping Zinkhandwe 72-64 on Sunday. St Mary’s defeated Matawale 63-56.

During the Sunday game, Ndola had the upper hand in the early stages of the game with the towering Joseph Nankwenya and Emmanuel Chisiye doing the damage on fast-break counterattacks. Zinkhandwe tried to retaliate through their captain Patrick Chaputula, but fell short of the assistance from his colleagues.

According to the director of the competition Hope Chisamanga, the semi-final slots has paired the same teams to battle it out this coming weekend at Mulunguzi Secondary School basketball court.

“The rules of the competition state that the team on first position will play against the fourth-placed team whereas the second-placed side will face that on third position,” he said.n