Southern Highlands women strip b’ball title from Morobe

SOUTHERN Highlands beat defending champions Morobe 78-54 in the women’s basketball final to claim gold in the 7th BSP PNG Games .
Southern Highlands captain Josephine Kapipi was ecstatic with her team’s performance, saying the victory would boost women’s basketball in the province.
“We struggled and we came from Southern Highlands because of the problems in the general elections, our people fought each other and there was a lot of problems in our province but we managed to come,” Kapipi said.
“Winning gold over Morobe, who are the defending champions, is a great achievement for us and as captain of the team I’m just so proud. We’ll defend this title in Mendi in 2019.
“We had our district games to form this team but with the election problems our training was affected but we managed to stay together and maintain a strong team bond,” the 24-year-old Mendi native said.
Southern Highlands coach Jero Kunda admitted it was his first time.
“It’s my first time coaching a team and to win the gold medal especially after travelling all this way and the problems we had at home, it is a great feeling,” Kunda said.
In the women’s bronze medal playoff, Gulf won bronze after defeating Chimbu 53-48 while in the men’s division NCD held on to beat Gulf 107-102 to claim gold.
In the men’s bronze medal playoff, Morobe beat Central 90-74.