Sunday

Women’s final

Game 3APR 49-72 Ubumwe

Men’s final

Game 1Patriots 71-65 IPRC-South

3rd place

Game 1Espoir 86-85 IPRC-Kigali

Ubumwe were on Sunday crowned the 2016 women basketball playoffs finals champions after a 3-0 drubbing of archrivals APR in the best-of-five final series at National Paralympic Committee gymnasium, Amahoro stadium.

The defending champions won the first two games; 55-52 and 52-48 before completing the clean sweep in game three, 72-49 to retain the title. On Sunday, Ubumwe won the first three quarters; 19-12, 16-12 and 22-10 before losing the fourth quarter 13-15.

"Our target this year was to win a double; the regular season league and the playoffs title, unfortunately we have not been able to achieve it, but we have to be happy with the playoffs triumph.

"I am very thankful to my players because in the playoffs, they were very determined to right what went wrong in the regular season league,” said head coach Jerry Ntare.

This was the first time for Ubumwe to win the playoffs title since the club was formed in 2013. The club has also won the regular season league in 2014 and 2015. "This title is a motivating factor for us ahead of the Zone V Championship in Tanzania,” he added.

Ubumwe and APR will represent Rwanda at the Zone V Club Championships slated to take place next month in Dar es-salaam while Patriots and Espoir will compete in the men’s category.

Meanwhile, in the men’s playoffs finals, Patriots took the first initiative, winning game 1 against IPRC-South, 71-65. Game 2 was scheduled to be played last evening. Outgoing champions Espoir defeated IPRC-Kigali 86-85 in Game 1 in the third place playoff.