Tema Youth is surprisingly running away with wins in the 2018 Accra Basketball League (ABL) Men’s Division I despite churning out five man lineups.
The team rolled out a five man side with no substitutes to a 64-60 win over Navy Warriors in the past round and repeated the feat earlier tonight.
This time, Tema run out 66-64 winners over Reformers of Prisons; after a sluggish start, Prisons tactical switch got the side back in the game and a few moments from forcing overtime against a visibly exhausted Youth side.
Prisons applied a full court press in the final quarter as the side trailed by 14 points to the entertaining Tema side who produced a number of highlight plays.
Tema Youth struggled to score points in the opening minutes as Reformers took a four point lead with Nii Aryee and Aziz Mohammed scoring.
Youth stormed back to lead 6-4 after two quick three pointers with one coming from Brian Kwami. Mark Mensah delivered a highlight crossover in assisting Kent Fosu’s three pointer as first quarter ended 19-7 for Tema.
Reformers Philip Barley scored a driving layup to make score Reformers 13-27 Tema Youth with a minute left in second quarter. The young Forward added two more points but Prisons ended the first half trailing 15-28.
Caleb Gomashie capped off a good scoring run for Reformers with a layup to make score Youth 30-24. Barley and Amos Ollenu combined for the latter to score layup. Kwami drained a three point shot to kick start a Tema Youth run which got the team’s lead to 42-26 with 3:20 left to play in third quarter. The third department ended 48-35 for Tema Youth.
Two three point shots from Kwami stretched Tema’s lead to 53-39. Prisons switched tactics and trimmed deficit to 55-59 with 3:10. Ollenu tied score at 64 with 26 seconds left but Youth got in front with 12 seconds left and held on to clinch another big win.
By Yaw Adjei-Mintah
@YawMintYM on Twitter
