Lionesses face Mozambique in pre-quarter qualification

National women’s basketball team, Kenya Lionesses, take on highly ranked Mozambique, on Wednesday 22 September at 11 pm, at the ongoing Women’s Afrobasket in Yaounde, Cameroon for a chance to make it to the top eight. 

Four matches are set to be played on the day with the winners joining four teams that finished top in each of the groups for the quarter-final stage of the championship. Kenya have their work cut out against a Mozambique side ranked 42nd in the world and fourth in Africa as of September 14, 2021. 

Lionesses bounce back with victory against Cape Verde

Mozambique qualified for this year’s edition of the Afrobasket without going through a qualifier but by virtue of finishing fourth in the last edition of the tournament in Dakar in 2019. They played for three wins and two losses for fourth place. 

In the group stage, Kenya’s opponents for the day finished last in group B after losses to Angola (70-61) and Nigeria (67-50) while Kenya finished second in group A after going down 74-50 to Cameroon and picking a win against Cape Verde (61-58).

 “We are taking it one match at a time and we understand that every match is different. We have a game plan for Mozambique and are looking at making it to the quarters,” said assistant coach Mike Opel.

Kenya's small forward Victoria Reynolds in a post-match conference after the team's match against Cape Verde admitted that they were still struggling with turnovers and rebounding promising that they would work on that going into the Mozambique match.