Dinaletsana stage great comeback
Kabelo Boranabi | Wednesday July 12, 2017 09:28
The team beat Jamaica 48-46 in their last game of the preliminary round played at the University of Botswana Indoor Sports Centre late yesterday. They now need a favour from their African counterparts, Uganda in their game against Jamaica later today. In yesterday’s game, Jamaica showed physical dominance against their smaller opponents.
They displayed superb defensive tactics leaving goal shooter, Cheludo David isolated a couple of times. Dinaletsana tried to play long balls, but that did not work against taller opponents. Jamaica took a 14-10 lead after the first quarter. In the second quarter, coach Setshedi Botlhole-Mmopi made changes with Amantle Never and Chenesani Mbangiwa coming in for David and Maungo Simone.
Although the changes sparked life into the team play, they failed to reduce the deficit as Jamaica took 20-25 lead at the break. On the last two quarters, Botlhole-Mmopi opted for shorter and agile attackers in Boikanyo Selogetso and Mbangiwa, and they caused problems for their opponents’ defence. Dinaletsana reduced the deficit in the third quarter as they levelled the scores at 34-34. In the last quarter, The Locals showed great resilience and fought back to take the lead for the first four minutes into the quarter.
With their opponents tiring, Dinaletsana won the game 48-46 sending the packed crowd into wild celebrations. “I’m very happy about the team’s performance. We went to play for short passes. We played low since their players are very tall,” Botlhole-Mmopi told journalists after the game. She further said the team deserves to reach the quarterfinals after putting on sterling performances since the start of the tournament.
Dinaletsana would face either Fiji or England if they reach the quarterfinals. This would be first time the Under-21 reached the stage as they failed to go beyond the preliminary round in 2005.