By Kehinde Okeowo
Nigeria’s female basket team, D’Tigress, defeated a hard fighting Malian side 70- 59 points to lift their third consecutive FIBA Women’s AfroBasket Championship.
The defending champion started strongly, and won the 1st quarter convincingly by 22-11 points.
The Malians responded to the initial setback by dominating and winning the 2nd quarter 13-9 points, but the Nigerian team won the first half 31-24 points.
Second half started with the Nigerian team fighting back to take the 3rd quarter 28-14 points, leading their opponent by 21 points going into the final quarter.
The Malians cut the deficit significantly after winning the 4th quarter 21-11points but lost the game 70-59 points.
Nigeria joins Senegal as the two female basketball teams to win the competition three consecutive times.
Nigeria has now won the tournament a record 5th time.