The Hindu : Sport : Railways men storm into the semifinals

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Thursday, Dec 27, 2007
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Railways men storm into the semifinals

G. Prasad

Brilliant burst in the last quarter does TN in

— Photo: T. SIngaravelou

PREVENTIVE PLAY: Indian Railways’ Snehpal Singh (10) tries to check Tamil Nadu’s Vineeth R. Mathew from scoring.

PUDUCHERRY: Indian Railways men changed gears brilliantly in the final quarter to overcome Tamil Nadu 97-87 and storm into the semifinals of the 58th National basketball championship here on Wednesday.

Tamil Nadu was clearly the best side till the end of the third session. But the fourth saw Railways launching an all-out attack. The move took Tamil Nadu players by surprise and before they could regroup, Railways ran away with the match.

The Railways defence didn’t work well till the half way mark and that allowed Tamil Nadu gain a comfortable 52-32 lead. But the former tightened up its defence in the third and managed to halt its opponent’s marauding march.

Jasjot Singh kicked off the fightback by scoring three-pointers in quick succession early in the final session and brought down the 17-point deficit Railways had conceded at the end of the third considerably.

A late blitz by Birender Singh — he netted eighteen points in the last quarter — took Railways past Tamil Nadu.

Off-colour

Tamil Nadu men looked totally off-colour in the final session as they could manage only 15 points compared to 42 points by their opponents.

Tamil Nadu played with its starting line-up for most part of the match and Harish, who was outstanding in the last encounter against Punjab, entered the court only in the latter part of the fourth quarter. By that time the match had almost slipped from Tamil Nadu’s hands.

Jasjot top scored for the winner with 24 points, while Lokesh Yadav netted 21 points for Tamil Nadu.

The results: Men: Quarterfinals: Indian Railways 97 (Jasjot Singh 24, Birender Singh 18, Yadwinder Singh 17, Snehpal Singh 15, Prakash Misra 10) bt Tamil Nadu 87 (Lokesh Yadav 21, Vineeth Revi Mathew 17, Chandrasekaran 16).

Uttarakhand 87 (Trideep Rai 40, Suresh Ranot 17, Murali Krishna 10) bt Kerala 77 (Manoj 21, Vijobi Vakkachan 18).

Pre-quarterfinals: Uttar Pradesh 102 (Vishesh Brigu Vanshi 32, Kumar Singh 17, Abishek Deubey 12) bt Rajasthan 72 (Mahender Singh 25, Mahipal Singh 14, S. Khan 12).

Karnataka 76 (Antony Nixon 18, Tinu Joseph 17, Roshan P Thankachan 12) bt Andhra Pradesh 61 (Pankaj 24, Liju Abraham 18).

Women: Quarterfinals: Chhattisgarh 117 (Pushpa 37, Aruna Kindo 15, Venu 15) bt Andhra Pradesh 27.

Tamil Nadu 67 (Sunitha Suren 19, Nithya 18) bt Punjab 59 (Sarabjeet Kaur 18, Kiranjeet Kaur 15).

Indian Railways 120 (Geethu Anna Jose 20, Manisha Dange 18, Anitha 12) bt Kerala 49 (Anjana 18, Ligi Peter 10).

Delhi 103 (Prashanthi Singh 32, Divya Singh 16, Sheeba Maggon 15) bt Karnataka 45.

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