19th NSF: FCT edge Gombe in basketball supremacy battle

The FCT men’s basketball team on Tuesday emerged 71-67 points victors over Gombe State in an epic basketball battle at the ongoing 19th National Sports Festival (NSF) in Abuja.

The game, attended by a huge crowd at the Open Courts of the Abuja National Stadium, was watched also by the Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung.

Team Gombe drew the first blood in the keenly-contested game and the first quarter ended in a narrow 18-17 points in their favour.

The second quarter saw the team from the Capital City come from behind to finish 16-11.

But it was the third quarter which proved tough, as both teams intermittently took the lead before Gombe State surrendered it 26-25 points to the FCT.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that many of the FCT and Gombe State players are teammates at club level and it reflected in their approach to the game.

It was during the final quarter that coach Abdulrahman Mohammed of Gombe became animated and accused the officials of compromise.

However, his team had no perfect response to FCT’s 16 points against his team’s 13 during the quarter.

Coach of FCT, Emmanuel Odah, told NAN that his team played against a good side.

“Gombe are not a small team and we all know that. They’ve been together for some time. We, on the other hand, only started preparing for the NSF two weeks ago.

“Luckily, we have good players who listen to instructions. But it wasn’t an easy game. We fought and eventually won.’’

Speaking on sidelines events, Odah said the allegations from coach Mohammed of Gombe was normal in a tension-soaked game.

“It’s always like that. If you ask me, the wrong calls went both ways because we were also complaining that the officiating was unfavourable to us.

“But we are focusing more on correcting our weaknesses as a team to be able to win gold in this competition. Note that it is possible we meet them again,” he said.