Ferroviario de Maputo secures playoffs berth after win over GS Petroliers

Adjehi Baru

Ferroviario de Maputo secured its playoff berth after beating Algeria's GS Petroliers 86-73 on Saturday at Kigali Arena. Baru Adjehi (206-C-91, college: Charleston) propelled Ferroviario with 17 points and 10 rebounds; Alvaro Masa (202-SF-83, agency: Interperformances) added 17 points and nine rebounds; Myck Kabongo (190-G-92, college: Texas) contributed 18 points as the Maputo-based team improved to 2-1. Baru, who sat out in Ferroviario's loss against Zamalek, recorded his second double-double on a 17 points and 10 rebounds performance, but as Ferroviario's assistant coach Marti Zamora-Mas noted: 'This is not a one-man team. We play together. Everyone can help the team.' 'We dedicate this victory to the Mozambican people in the Cabo Delgado province.' As of Saturday, Ferroviario leads Group C ahead of Zamalek (1-0), AS Douanes (1-1) and GS Petroliers (0-2). With the win, Ferroviario de Maputo became the second team from the FIBA-run qualifying round - after Patriots BC - to reach the BAL playoffs. Ferroviario led by as many as 21 points and GSP, who seemed quite decent in the opening ten minutes, was unable to fight back. In the absence of GSP leading scorer Mohamed Harat (198-F-90), who sat out due to a muscle strain, Abdellah Hamdini (200-F-92) took the lead, powering his team with a game-high 33 points, Touhami Ghezzoul added 11 points and seven rebounds, but the Algerian powerhouse struggled to cope with Ferroviario's sense of urgency. 'He had a great individual performance, but we suffered as a team due to the lack of preparation,' GSP head coach Sofiane Boulahia said. GSP will conclude its Group C campaign on Monday when it takes on Zamalek. 'We are not yet eliminated,' Boulahia noted. The former point guard of the Algerian national team went on saying: 'We haven't played competitive basketball for a year and half in the [Algerian] league. We only trained once a day rather than twice a day. The effort was there, the anger was there, but we lacked preparation. Technically they were in a good place but, they lacked preparation.' Asked about GSP's game plan against Zamalek, Boulahia insisted that his team 'will approach in a normal way with the same effort. We are not eliminated, depending on tomorrow's results. We'll approach the game with the same motivation and same objective and try to win the game.' GSP gave everything it had in tank but making only 6 of its 14 free-throw attempts proved costly to a team that that made only 30 of its 73 field-goals attempts. To make matters worse for the Algerian team, it lost the rebounding battle 55-39.
Courtesy of: thebal.com

Tags : BARU ADJEHI, FERROVIARIO DE MAPUTO, BASKETBALL AFRICA LEAGUE BASKETBALL