City Oilers have one foot in the semifinal of the East Division Road to BAL tournament after picking their second group win.
The Ugandan side beat JBC of Zimbabwe 84-71 on Wednesday afternoon in a closely contested thrilling encounter whose winning margin is deceptive.
Having lost their opening game to Beira yesterday, JBC came into the game as a must-win and played it as such taking the opening quarter 22-20.
Veteran combo guard Parrish Petty took his turn to lead the Oilers, scoring 11 of the team’s first-quarter points and had 16 at the long break with the game tied at 45.
Oilers led by as many as 10 points (65-55) with under a minute and a half to play in the third quarter but a foul shot and a couple of unanswered 3-pointers pulled JBC to within 3 points (62-65) going into the fourth quarter.
JBC had a 6-4 run to start the fourth quarter and took a lead midway through the period forcing Mandy Juruni to call a timeout. On return, the Oilers missed two shots but once Robinson Opong connected from the top of the mountain for the lead with just over 3 minutes to play, the Uganda champions never looked back as Petty took charge and closed out the game.
Petty finished with a game-high 29 points to go with 7 rebounds. Dane Miller and Germaine Roebuck also scored in double figures for Oilers as Titus Odeke cleaned the glass with a game-high 13 rebounds, 9 defensive.
Saul Phiri and Tafadzwa Tela led JBC’s losing effort with 16 points apiece. Tashinga Chiimba (12 points), Nyang Wek (10 points & 13 rebounds) and Dyvonne Pfachi (10) also scored in double digits.
Oilers will battle Beira on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. (EAT)
