KCCA Leopards’ guard Maureen Amoding is happy that she has now overcome the injury that kept her out of her team’s earlier National Basketball League games. She has been able to feature in the last three games, helping her team record nine wins and one loss in the ten league fixtures so far.
In fact, Amoding feels that she could never be in finer condition than now, as they prepare to take on their main rivals JKL Lady Dolphins on Good Friday, March 29 at the Lugogo indoor stadium.
“I feel really good, and I am raring to go. My recent injury has now fully healed,” Amoding said during an interview earlier this week. Because of an injury picked up soon after the 2024 season started, Amoding, who turned out for the JT Lady Jaguars in 2023, missed a number of her new team’s games earlier, something that stirred a bit of concern among the KCCA fraternity.
You see, when KCCA brought back Amoding for this season, she was a marquee signing; the kind that is expected to aid the team’s cause to win the championship this year. Considering that KCCA’s last title came way back in 2014, the hunger for success is palpable.
Yet, with the quality of a player like Amoding, one is sure that she improves teams offensively quite significantly. Last season, she played a key role in having the JT Lady Jaguars placed among the favourites to win the league. And although the Jaguars ended up floundering at the semi-final playoff stage eventually, Amoding stood out as a real match winner.
Now, in her second spell at KCCA, having turned out for the team back in 2015 to 2017, she is older and more experienced. And in many ways, Amoding is looked at as a major jigsaw that has been missing in this KCCA team. And there is no better moment for her to prove that than against the league’s defending champions, JKL.
“I know how almost every basketball fan is excited about the game on Friday. The vibe is evident, and it only points to one fact, that it is a big game. Personally, I cannot wait and I am looking forward to helping my team win at all cost,” Amoding said.
While many will believe that a player like Amoding will not need much motivation for a clash against JKL, there is a lot more to it for her. In her first spell at KCCA, Amoding did not win any championship there despite having a support cast of Flavia Okecho, Becky Akullo and Martha Soigi around her.
For some reason, then, Amoding and her teammates, failed to break the code on how to beat her former team, UCU Lady Canons, with whom she had won the 2010, 2011 and 2012 championships. It is something Amoding looks back on with regret, hence getting really fired up to dislodge JKL.
Notably, the game on Friday, whatever the outcome will not decide the championship. But it will provide a psychological edge to whoever wins it. Either JKL will be emboldened more, or Amoding’s KCCA will have figured out what it means to be a champion again.
But all in all, without focusing so farther ahead, as the future is unknown (injuries could creep in as the season goes on, which can cause dysfunction in a team), Amoding believes KCCA and JKL is definitely going to be a classic, and therefore expects the indoor to be buzzing!
