KPA, Equity in action as Zone Five tourney gets underway

Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) women's league champions and the FIBA Africa Zone Five women's club championship title holders KPA begin their hunt for gold in Dar es Salaam on Monday with a clash against Burundi's Young Sisters. 

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), under the tutelage of veteran tactician Antony Ojukwu is up against eight other teams, including Kenya's Equity Hawks at this year's Zone Five championship being hosted in Tanzania fron 26 September to 1 October. 

The dockers headline group C that has the Burundians and rivals Rwanda Energy Group (REG). Hawks, on their part are in pool A that has Egyptian side Alexandria Sporting and South Sudan’s Nile Legends. 

Group B has hosts Vijana Queens headlining the pool, APR of Rwanda and Ethiopia’s Wolkite. Teams will be ranked to ninth after the group stage, paving way for the quarters. After the first knock-out stage, the ninth-placed team will get a chance to play classification matches. 

Ojukwu's charges have their work cut out as they look to defend the title they won last year, beating Hawks in the decider match. The tournament was played in a round robin format last year. 

As the dockers begin their hunt against Young Sisters, they ought to remain wary of REG who appear to be the stronger opponents in the group stage. 

REG Women Basketball Club has managed to beat KPA from Kenya in two consecutive friendly games.

The two sides met in a pre-season tournament for KPA, held in Kigali and REG won the two matches played 55-44 and 46-38.

However, Ojukwu has a slightly tinkered squad with the addition of Kenyan International Victoria Reynolds and US-based duo of Kristina Kings and Brittany Shine who joined the squad in Dar es Salaam on Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, Coach David Maina's Hawks who are chasing a second Zone Five title, open their group stage matches witha tough fixture against Alexandria Sporting. 

The Kenyan teams will have a rest day on Tuesday before playing their last group matches on Wednesday. 

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Group A

Equity - Kenya

Alexandria Sporting - Egypt

Nile Legends - South Sudan

Group B

Vijana - Tanzania

APR - Rwanda

Wolkite - Ethiopia

Group C

KPA - Kenya

Reg - Rwanda

Young Sisters - Burundi