East Africa Netball Club Championship: Sandra Nambirige Stars as KCCA Register a Hard Fought Victory against Tamisani

On May 10, 2022

The 2021 promising player of the season award winner, Sandra Nambirige shined while her side KCCA Netball Club come from a quarter down to win their second consecutive game of the tournament in a thrilling encounter against Tamisani.

The 2021 Uganda’s Women Super League first runners up, first took their opponents in Tanzania’s Tamisani lightly but the tense first quarter awakened KCCA’s technical bench to act accordingly.

Lilian Ndezako scored all the 12 goals for the Tanzanian outfits to take a slender 12-11 advantage in the first quarter before KCCA found their way back into the contest.

Rose Namutebi another KCCA player who put up a good show

In second stanza, Sandra Nambirige, KCCA’s goal defender made six steals to win her side ten goals that brought them on top of the game and it ended 26-23 in favor of KCCA.

In the same line, Fred Mugerwa made two crucial substitutions of Fortunate Ngabirech for Annet Najjuka in the centre and Akello Malisera for Namutebi Rose in Wing defense position to strengthen the team on court which perfectly worked for the side and it won it by 56-40.

Sandra Nambirige had this to comment about her outstanding performance on the day.

“Yes we didn’t start well, our opponents were stealing our centre passes which affected us in the first quarter, but as defence we decided to steal theirs also, which worked for us.

My performance as a player, I happy that at least I perfect what I do in training, I go in a game with an aim of stealing at least five or six balls.” Said Sandra Nambirige.

KCCA’s gaffer Fred Mugerwa revealed why they had a poor start.

“We were testing a certain combination of players on court that didn’t work out properly and we had to change in the second quarter and that’s why we improved. And we also told them to intercept their centre passes if we wanted to win and that exactly what they did and has enabled us to come out on top,” said KCCA coach Fred Mugerwa Tabale.

“We could have won by a better margin, just that we did a few mistakes here and there but I am that we managed to pick a win and that’s all matters for now.”

“This was the strongest team in our group so the performance will not matter. I was impressed with Sandra Nambirige’s performance, actually the whole three defenders did well and that’s why we came back stronger.

“It’s just coordination, working together, the problem is that we never had the full time training and we didn’t get enough time, but I believe that as we continue playing in the competition, we will improve on that.”

Hanisha Muhammed scored 26 points in the opening three quarters, Shadiah Nassanga added 23 more and Irene Eyalu contributed 8 in the winning effort.

This is the second win for KCCA who beat UPDF 67-24 on Monday. They return to action against JKU of Zanzibar on Thursday

The other day three results:

JKT Mbweni 37-38 KVZ
•Tamisani 40-56 KCCA
•Chaya 46-41 JKU (Men)
•Prisons 61-27 Uhamiaji

Day Four fixtures:

NIC (Ug) vs JKT Mbweni (Tz) @10am
WOB vs Chaya (Men) @11:30am
UPDF vs JKU (TZ) @1PM
Uhamiaji (TZ) vs KVZ (Zanzibar)@2:30PM