26 May 2014

Shalosh Matsetse, Botswana girls basketball team coach, says her team will depend on speed and agility to overcome their opponents in the on-going Africa Youth Games (AYG) in Gaborone.

Team Botswana will clash with Mali on Tuesday, May 27 in the quarterfinals of the youth games. 

Botswana will depend on their speed and agility as they take on a relentless Mali in the quarter finals at the Botswana National Youth Centre basketball courts.

As the games reach the knock out stages, competition is getting tougher and Mali will be looking to eliminate their hosts to progress to the next stage. Matsetse said Mali is a physical team that, however, is very slow and could be undone by Team Botswana’s speed.

“They are a very physical team but they are slow as well. We will use speed to beat them. We will have to move the ball fast and shoot from the outside,” said Matsetse.

The local girls scrapped into the last eight on Sunday after finishing fourth in Pool A, where they won one match against bottom side Mauritius and suffered three defeats.

Matsetse’s determined team walloped Mauritius 13-5 in its second match, and fought bravely against Angola and Zimbabwe before losing 15-14 and 12-11 respectively.

The only match they were outclassed in was the 4-17 hammering by Egypt on Sunday (March 25). Against Zimbabwe they proved their ability to handle their more established opponents, maintaining a 6-5 lead, with Lerato Molefhe, captain Monica Tlou and Gamu Nkobodo the driving forces.

But Zimbabwe fought back and the thrilling match ended at 12-11 in favour of the visitors.  “Overall I am very happy with the way we have performed so far in the tournament.

The team has shown strong mentality especially since it was our first time to play in front of such a big crowd. We handled the pressure very well,” said Matsetse.

Meanwhile, the boys’ team also made it through to the quarterfinal stage after winning two matches from four. They defeated Kenya 16-13 and Algeria 14-9 but lost 14-9 and 21-16 against DRC and Algeria respectively. ENDS