Wale Aboderin’s Dolphins of Lagos kept to their promise not to concede defeat this season as they upstaged defending champions, First Bank of Lagos 77-72 in the final of the 11th edition of the Zenith Bank Women’s Basketball Championship at the weekend.
The third position went to the four-time former champions, First Deepwater that out dunked the Inspector General of Police Queens 53-43 in the losers’ Third-placed game.
For their efforts, Dolphins were rewarded with Zenith Bank’s giant trophy as well as a N1.2million winning prize money at stake.
The Elephants Girls got the silver trophy and a N1million cheque as runners up while First Deepwater got the bronze trophy and N500,000 cheque at the finals which held at the indoor sports hall of the National Stadium, Surulere Lagos.
Only Dolphins were unbeaten all through the duration of the competition from the first and second phase in Abuja and Ilorin. They kept no one in doubt on their readiness to end the dominance of the Elephants as they took the fight straight to their opponent’s end of the court right from the blast of the referee’s whistle.
The Aboderin Babes made the first three points of the final before First Bank realised that the game had indeed started. They kept on the pressure till the final buzz.
Besides winning the 2015 Zenith Bank Women Basketball Championship, Dolphins’ play maker Juliet Currency in Jersey No.10 also emerged as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the championship. She also emerged as the top scorer of the championship.
Despite trailing former MVP, Chioma Udeaja of First Bank who scored 25 points in the final compared with her 21 points, Currency had polled enough points from the beginning of the competition to smile away with the award. Bucky Damilola of Sunshine Angels of Akure won the best rebounder of the tournament.
Currency and Okpe Pauline Dolphins, Udeaja and Nkechi Akashili both of First Bank and Blessing Samuel of the Nigeria Customs emerged as the Best Five players of the 11th edition of the Zenith Bank Women Basketball Championship.
The Group Managing Director/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Peter Amangbo, commended all the teams that took part at this year’s championship, promising that the 12th edition next year will be bigger and better when compared with what happened this at this edition.
He however urged reporters on the basketball beat to strive to give basketball reporting deep coverage by letting their readers have up to date information on the players.
The bank later held a cocktail for the winning team at the Lagos secretariat where Dolphins players and officials danced to celebrate their feat of ending First Bank’s dominance of the local scene.
To reach the final, Dolphins thrashed IGP Queens 84-49 in the semi-finals, while First Bank beat four-time champions, First Deepwater 68-43.
In the classification games, Customs defeated Benue Princess 68-42 to finish in the 5th position while Benue Princess settled for 6th. Delta Force beat Sunshine Angels 59-57 to win the 7th place, with Sunshine Angels finishing 8th.
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