- National Basketball League
- Wednesday, October 11
- UCU Canons 67-63 Our Saviour
UCU Canons dug deep to beat Our Saviour after a 67-63 victory in the National Basketball League third-place playoff at Lugogo Arena on Wednesday evening.
Centre Peter Sifuma led the Canons with a game-high 23 points, pulled down 12 rebounds and made two assists. Joel Kayiira added 15 points and 13 rebounds while captain Ibanda Lwabaga contributed 10 points.
Sifuma’s offensive prowess gave Nicholas Natuhereza’s charges an edge while he equally bossed the paint to retain the team’s possession often.
Moses Mugisha led the scoring for Our Savior with 17 points while Malual Dier picked 12 rebounds.
From tip-off, it was clear that it was going to be a competitive and tight game due to the energy and speed shown by the two sides.
Canons led 26-19 at the end of the first 10 minutes, but by the time both sides went for a long break, they were trailing by two points (38-36).
Despite the hard work by Our Saviour, UCU limited them in the next ten minutes thus scoring only 10 points in the third period (50-48) as the game lead kept swinging from one side to another.
With three minutes to play, the game got levelled 61-61 and the few fans that turned up to the Arena pushed on their sides rallying them not to slumber.
But at full-time, Nicholas Natuhereza’s side ran away with a four-point lead (67-63) to take third place as they embarked on preparing for what lies ahead.
It was the second successive time for the Canons to finish third, last year they beat KIU Titans to win bronze.