Thunder overcomes Umoja in electrifying KNBL clash

The first quarter ended in 11-11, before the Champions lost the second 19-25, but lost the last two 26-12 and 21-17 respectively.

Umoja got to an electric start to the first quarter, hitting timely three pointers, diving for loose balls and engaging the adoring hoop fans who had thronged the 2500 sitter Gymnasium.

The Thunder would however weather the early barrage of shots by Umoja to finish the quarter 11-11, leaving the crowd guessing on what was to come next.

The second quarter saw the Eastlands based Umoja win 25-19, led by standout player Joel Ntambwe who was outstanding for the better part of the first half leading his teammates once again to a first half six points lead (36-30)

Down six by the half, it would however be Brad Ibs' charges who would show their championship pedigree and run away all together in the second half. 

In need of a potential game changing moment, the Thunder would resort to playing their brand of basketball, suffocating the Umoja defense resulting in open lanes to the basket as evident by Ariel Okall's dunk to begin the third quarter.  

A dominant  third quarter for the Thunder( 26-12) left the Umoja faithful  riled up, with the game slowly  but surely  slipping away from them. Once stability had been restored in the third, the Thunder camp would cruise to a 21-17 fourth quarter win to seal the rather emotional, ugly, gritty win (77-65). 

As great as advertised, the game had its fair share of momentous acts, as players could be seen jawing back and forth even leading to ejections.

The referees were almost physically  assaulted for their calls, power outage that had led to the delay of the stated 8:00pm tip-off and much  more that  could have potentially  gone wrong, in a contest  that brought  out the vibrant  hoop fans and was even graced by Kenya Basketball  Federation  president Paul Otula.