Petro de Luanda passed another tough test as they reached the BAL Semi-Finals for the third time in a row.
Last month in Cairo, the Angolan champions closed their Nile Conference with a nail-biting 91-90 win against hosts Al Ahly before overcoming Abidjan Basket Club (ABC) 88-84 in the Quarter-Finals on Sunday night in Kigali.
It was an evenly-matched game that could have gone either as the four lead changes in the fourth quarter showed.
“A little bit of experience, I think,” ABC coach Liz Mills replied when asked about the difference between her team and Petro de Luanda.
“The fact that we’ve put this team together only four days ago I couldn’t be more proud of how they played. At the end of the day, experience mattered, but credit to them, but we really felt like H [Harouna] said, we could have won the whole thing.”
ABC looked nothing like the team that finished fourth in the Sahara Conference, especially after the additions of Omar Abada, Tylor Ongwae and Ousmane Drame, three players who combined for 38 points.
“We always believed we could beat Petro,” said Abdoulaye Harouna who lost to Petro for the third straight time after featuring for FAP (2021) and AS Sale (2022).
Harouna was 2 for 14 from the floor to finish with 10 points.
“I think the game against Stade Malien [ABC lost 90-71 and Harouna had 15 points] was way tougher than this against Petro,” Harouna recalled the clash that saw ABC drop to fourth in the Sahara Conference in March in Dakar.
Five Petro players, led by Carlos Morais, scored in double digits, and Petro benefited from a productive bench, which outscored ABC’s 35-19.
Morais was superb from the behind the arc, making 4 of his 5 three-point attempts to finish with 18 points.
And Ater Majok reminded everyone why Petro signed him. The South Sudanese center came up with four of his five block shots in the last quarter, which led to more scoring opportunities for Petro.
“Respect. That’s all I can say about ABC,” said Petro center Jone Pedro who contributed 12 points and 8 rebounds.
Mills admitted that losing her second straight BAL Quarter-Finals was painful. “If we had Omar, Tylor and Ousmane in the Sahara Conference we would have finished first; we would have blown Cape Town out in the Quarter-Finals; we would have beaten whoever in the Semi-Finals, and we would have been within the trophy. That’s just the truth.”
ABC finish their BAL season with a 3-3 mark while Petro remain undefeated in six games before taking on AS Douanes on Wednesday.
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