JEDDAH, 29 March — For the first time ever, the fabulous Jeddah All-Stars Selection got to face a world-class competition at the hands of reigning Asian ballclubs champions Al-Ittihad and basketball fans milled up through the rafters of Ittihad gym to witness the show.
It turned out to be a display of two teams who are considerably in a class in their own way being pitted against each other. The Jeddah All-Stars Selection undeniably is a class act in itself but ranged against a keenly polished, well-orchestrated ballclub that reminds the adroitness of a world-class synchronized gymnastics team in its execution — Ittihad Club — is simply made of a sterner stuff. The night’s top scorer Adel Jehaini, finishing the game with 30 poitns opened up the scoring table for Ittihad with a triple and their American import Shannon Taylor clustered nine points for a 29-22 first quarter surge. John Gatchalian of the Jeddah Selection showed a good account of himself with six points on pop-up jumpers in the same session but it would be a short-lived brilliance as he went nil the rest of the way.
Duplicating the first quarter, Jehaini greeted the second with a booming triple to dictate Ittihad’s deadliness behind the rainbow arc as Taylor nailed 2 treys and Mohamed Mbrerik drilled one to put the game well in control for coach Ali Sanhani and his assistant Shaheen Abdur Rahman’s Al-Ittihad squad. They took a 53-31 lead at halftime as the Jeddah Selection were tightly defended managing only nine points in the second quarter.
