Defending champion Beijing sweeps Bayi 3-0 in WCBA finals

After the 96-77 home victory, defending champion Beijing swept Bayi 3-0 in the best-of-five Women's Chinese Basketball Association (WCBA) league finals here on Thursday.

Lagging behind by 0-2 in the series, Bayi demonstrated their will to win in the beginning of the match with Sun Mengxin contributing 10 out of Bayi's 19 points in the first quarter. Sylvia Fowles and Shao Ting made a great combination in and out the paint to help Beijing lead by 27-19.

Wang Xuemeng scored seven points in a row for Bayi in the second quarter but Beijing still managed to finish the first half 52-36 as the guests suffered from turnovers.

Fowles had a show time of scoring in the paint after the halftime break. Though she sat on the bench for the whole fourth quarter, her Chinese teammates extended the lead to 31 points at most. Beijing's head coach Xu Limin sent Zhang Fan, the veteran who broke her left arm on court, let she play for the team in the last two minutes and 39 second.

It was also Zhang Fan who lifted the trophy for Beijing, the newly elected president of the Chinese Basketball Association Yao Ming presented the award for team Beijing.

"We wanna let people see she is still able to play, to lift the trophy, even with a broken arm, that was the honor she deserves." said Xu Limin, "Today we finally became a dynasty, but I've been dreaming of another title. If others could achieve that, we can do that too in the future."

Fowles, who had a game-high 35 points and 12 rebounds, became the finals MVP. Her teammate Shao Ting contributed 17 points and eight rebounds. Sun Mengxin led Bayi with 20 points. Bayi had 17 turnovers in the match while Beijing only had eight.

Source: Xinhua