D’Tigress: qualified for Spain 2018

With their  48-47 victory over Mali on Saturday, Nigeria’s Senior Women Basketball team, D’Tigress, have not only qualified for final match of 2017 Women Afrobasket, but secured a place in 2018 FIBA Women Basketball Cup in Spain.

Nigeria got the dual ticket in a match desperately needed by both sides, as home advantage was no barrier to the fearless D’ Tigress against the competition’s host, Mali, in the capital, Bamako.

D’Tigress had no room for weak beliefs like “let your host lead around first’ as they showed Mali around their home right from the first quarter which ended 10-7 points.

As if that was an error, Nigeria added 13 points at the end of ‘the second quarter, while Mali managed to return five points as the score board read 26-12 points against Mali.

The Malians picked more points throughout the second half of the game but were not enough to overrun the D’Tigress.

The third quarter ended 17 -16 points against Nigeria and 18-9 points in favour of Mali in the last quater.

Atonye Nyingifa came out as the best performer for D’Tigress as she scored 11 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals but no block, while Ezinne Kalu also scored 11 points.

However, the highest scorer of the match was Meiya Tirera of Mali who scored 15 points which was not enough to take the team to final.

Similarly, Naignouma Coulibaly was the top performer of her team, scoring six points, 17 rebounds, one assist, one steal and a block to get efficiency rate of +19, while Nigeria’s Nyingifa got +10.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria will again meet the defending champion, Senegal on Sunday in a duel, as Nigeria beat Senegal 58-54 points on Thursday.

(NAN)