Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) women’s basketball team captain Natalie Akinyi believes they now have what it takes to make a continental podium finish.
Speaking in Mombasa after the play-off finals, the play-maker is convinced KPA is now ripe for the Africa Championship.
“When we go to the Africa Championship this year, our target is to make a podium finish,” offered Akinyi.
“We have been up to number five and so we want to set ourselves a target because most of the teams out there recognize our defence.”
The Porters over the weekend won the national title after sweeping debutants Zetech University Sparks 3-0 in the best-of-five-game series.
Akinyi believes there is good progress, considering they played the two top teams in Africa—Alexandria Club and Costa dol Sol— and lost by a small margin.
On the arrival of Ifunaya Ikoro to the side, Akinyi said the Nigerian star guard emerging as the play-off Most Valuable Player (MVP) brings a lot to the table. “Congratulations to Ify. That was something good for her. We brought her in from the Africa Championship and she has gelled well,” she said.
She said this year's title was special because KPA won it unbeaten. In 2017, we faced Equity Bank but now we had a new opponent Zetech University Sparks.
Eugene Adera, who was named the MVP in the men’s category, was over the moon in only his first season with the team since joining KPA from Emyba. “It’s an amazing team,” he said, “Equity is a very good team and we knew they would come hard at us.”
On the Basketball Africa League (BAL), he noted that it is a very competitive event and for KPA to succeed they must work hard.
KPA men's and women's teams beat Dumas and Sparks 3-1 and 3-0 respectively in the best-of-five-game final series.
