Impressive Odondo hands Titans second KBF league victory

It has been a long time coming, but finally Zetech Titans have bagged their second victory of the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) men's league. 

In a high-octane Premier league match at the Ulinzi Complex on Saturday 4 February, Eric Odondo erupted for 20 points, 18 scored beyond the arc and one jump shot to emerge top scorer in a 62-58 win over Africa Nazarene University (ANU) Wolfpacks. Simon Rapudo added 18 for the winners. 

Going into the match, Wolfpacks were the clear favourites as Titans had not won a game since playing Kisumu Lakeside early on in the season while the Mike Oluoch-led side have been known to cause all manner of trouble for the league favourites, including subjecting Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) to their only loss of the season so far. 

However, Titans came out fighting from the first whistle and matched ANU's energy on all fronts to see the points tied on 13 at the end of the first period. 

Job Munene's Titans were relentless in the second quarter and they kept their foot on the gas to score another 13 points in the period while restricting the opponent to ten, taking a three-point lead to the break. 

"It feels good to be back to winning ways. The early lead gave the players the confidence to jeep fighting. 

We knew they are a good team with speed so our strategy after the early lead was to slow them down and that frustrated them. 

Going into the next match, the squad is motivated and we hope to build on this momentum as we work our way out of the relegation zone," coach Munene offered.

The second half of the match was still dominated by Titans who scored 20-13 in the third quarter to take a commanding lead. 

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Wolfpacks attempted a comeback in the final period, coming to within three points of equalling the score with about two minutes to play but they ran out of time as Munene's men held on for victory. 

In another men's league match, former champions Ulinzi Warriors thrashed University of Nairobi (UoN) Terror 89-71 in a match that ended with tempers flaring from both teams. 

The military side dominated the first quarter 19-12 but were outscored in the second 17-19. The third quarter was a whitewash for the varsity side as Ulinzi went 30-19 before killing the match with a 23-21 final quarter.