Manama go down fighting to Kuwait Club

TDT | Manama                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com   

Bahrain champions Manama suffered a narrow 88-91 loss to Kuwait Club of Kuwait last night in their second Gulf sub-zone game of the West Asia Super League (WASL).

The contest was held at Zain Basketball Arena in Um Al Hassam.

Manama held a slim 43-41 advantage at the half but the visitors took control in the third, where they outscored the hosts 27-17 to go ahead 68- 60 with the final quarter to play.

There, Kuwait did well to stave off a furious Manama rally, with the home team going up 83-81 with just over two minutes to play.

The Kuwaitis responded with a 10-5 run to close out the affair.

Elijah Robinson scored 22 points as the Bahrainis’ leading scorer in the loss while Charles Wayne Garcia added 18, Lamontue Ulmer 17 and Mustafa Hussain13.

For Kuwait, Marcus Anthony Georges-Hunt paced his team with 22, Cody Lalanne added 20 and Hamad Hasan chipped in with 14.

The loss was the first for Manama in the WASL. They had earlier opened their tournament campaign with a win against Al Nasr Riyadh from Saudi Arabia.

The WASL is a new basketball competition sanctioned by FIBA, the sport’s global governing body.

Manama are one of 16 teams in the inaugural edition.

They are in Group B of the Gulf sub-zone alongside Kuwait, Nasr and Al Sadd SC of Qatar.

The Bahrainis will be facing each of the three sides in home-and-away contests.

Following last night’s fixture, they go against Sadd away on 9 January before playing Nasr at home on 23 January.

They then close out their preliminary round campaign with two games in March, first against Kuwait away on the 13th and then against Sadd in the Kingdom on the 21st.