Nairobi City Thunder Fall To Petro de Luanda In Kalahari Conference As The Fixture Marks 200th Game At BAL
PRETORIA, South Africa, Apr 1 – Nairobi City Thunder suffered their second loss at the Basketball Africa League (BAL) Kalahari Conference after going down 97-70 to 2024 champions Petro de Luanda of Angola in their third game played on Wednesday at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa.
The fixture that marked 200th game at BAL saw Albert “Kenya Airways” Odero feature in his first game after overcoming a hamstring injury to lead the points for the Kenyan champions with 5 in the first quarter, which saw Thunder trail 20-24.
The second quarter was a nightmare for Thunder, which managed only 11 points, with six of them contributed by Odero, against Petro’s 35, allowing the Angola champions to take a comfortable 59-31 lead at the break.
Odero ended up finishing the game with 11 points, Derrick Ogechi was the top point scorer for Thunder with 20 while American Thomas also hit double digits with 12 points.
Garang Dinng, who was the hero in Thunder’s previous win against Johannesburg Giants, was a pale shadow of himself after only managing to get two points.
The defeat now leaves Thunder with a must-win game in their remaining two games against Al Ahly of Libya and high-flying RSSB Tigers of Rwanda, who are yet to lose a game, for them to stand a chance of making it to the playoffs in Kigali in May.
Petro got the tie underway with two points before small guard Derrick Ogechi responded immediately, before power forward Ariel Okall levelled the scores.
From there, it was an end-to-end action with Gerson Goncalves shooting a three-pointer to extend Petro’s lead, but American Lance Thomas notched a beautiful dunk to reduce the deficit to one point (7-6).
Captain Tylor Ogwae then added three points after a foul to bring the scores to 10-9 by the time the game headed for the first technical time out.
Nairobi City Thunder introduced Odero and immediately made an impact, scoring three points from the outside to bring the tie to a 12-12 draw before heading for the second time out.
Odero was at it again, seeing his precision add two points to give Thunder a 16-14 lead for the first time in the game, but the team could not sustain the pressure, ending up trailing by two points (24-20).
Returning for the second quarter, Petro upped the tempo, maximizing on their offence to take the scores to 59-31 despite Thomas starting Thunder off with a three-point basket.
-Alex Isaboke is reporting from Pretoria, South Africa –
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