Recap
Final (12:00 PM-1:00 PM) Sunday, Jan 18, 2009
Adiyat
Fatiha
  1 2 T
Adiyat (6-3-0) 24 26 50
Fatiha (6-3-0) 17 38 55

Hot Shooting Propels Fatiha Jan 22, 2009
by Jawwad Butt  

Before this semi-final game got underway, it was obvious that Adiyat had a clear and unmatched speed advantage over Fatiha and that’s exactly what Adiyat capitalized on the whole game. Adiyat was a little slow getting out the gates but once they found their running game, they were no match for Fatiha. Fatiha’s inability to get back on defence became their worst enemy as most of Adiyat’s first half points came from fastbreaks. The first half looked pretty good for Adiyat while Fatiha on the other hand looked a little out of place offensively as well as defensively as they were not able to get back in transition. The first half ended with Adiyat leading Fatiha 24-17.

The second half started with Fatiha coming out ready to play. This is where the past experience of Fatiha kicked in. Fatiha’s whole team came out ready to take over the pace of the game and make Adiyat play their style of basketball. Unfortunately for Adiyat, they were not able to match the intensity and energy of Fatiha in the second half. Fatiha was able to go on a 10-0 run to tie the game at 37 with less than 10 minutes left in the game thanks to Mike Leonard’s back to back to back 3s and another clutch 3 by Teepu. Adiyat’s Taha Mubashir tried to answer back with a layup of his own to put Adiyat back up by two but Fatiha’s hot shooting from Mike L. and Teepu proved to be too much in the end. Fatiha was able to pull out a close win despite not being able to keep up with the younger and quicker Adiyat team. The final score tallied to 55-50 in favour of Fatiha. Mike Leonard led Fatiha with 17 points by making 5/9 from downtown; in total Fatiha hit 7 3-pointers in the 2nd half (4 by Mike L. and 3 by Teepu) to fuel their comeback.