TN, UP to clash in girls final
Tamil Nadu girls put together two dominant scoring runs at the start of the first and third quarter, to beat Karnataka 60-47 and enter the final of the 68th junior national basketball championship in Noida on Saturday.
Tamil Nadu controlled the proceedings from the start and led 30-24 at half time. They then put together a fabulous 15-3 run in the first five minutes of the third quarter at the Shiv Nadar University courts.
Karnataka hit back-to-back threes to make it 35-50 going into the fourth, but by then TN were well and truly in control right up to the final whistle.
In the other semi-final, hosts Uttar Pradesh defeated Kerala 75-61 booking their maiden trip to the championship final.
UP forwards Kavya Dwivedi and Reena Patil were impressive, grabbing 12 rebounds. Their effort contributed in UP being able to put up 77 field goal attempts as against Kerala’s 62.
Another notable performance came from youth India player Vaishnavi Yadav, producing 41 points, 11 rebounds, five steals and six assists, proving to be the difference between the two sides.
In the boys’ section, Punjab defeated Tamil Nadu 70-54 in the first semi-final.
Punjab’s 6ft 10 centre Princepal Singh played superbly, guiding his team into the final, with an impactful double double.
Princepal’s formidable physique caused trouble for TN.
The undersized TN team were also was guilty of missing numerous easy lay-ups in transition.
Punjab will be up against Kerala in the summit clash, after the latter overcame Rajasthan 92-86 in the second semi-final. Kerala came back from behind to win an exciting contest. Results: Women’s semi-finals: Tamil Nadu (M Nishanthi 23, S Pushpa 14, J Ishwarya 10) bt Karnataka (Sanjana Ramesh 20, Harshitha K 11) 60-47 (168, 14-16, 20-11, 10-12), Uttar Pradesh (Vaishnavi Yadav 41, Shreyasi Vats 15, Shivani Gupta 10) bt Kerala (Sreekala R 15, Aneesha Cleetus 13, Jayalakshmi VJ 9) 75-61 (16-9, 22-27, 19-14, 18-11) Men’s semi-finals: Punjab (Mandeep Singh 18, Princepal Singh 15, Kanwar Gurbaz Singh 12, Gurwinder Singh 11) bt Tamil Nadu (Shanmugam M 21, Praveen Kumar 8, Sheldin Rashan 8) 70-54 (16-11, 19-15, 18-15, 17-13), Kerala (Amal Reghu 35, Joshua George 29, Md Shiraj 10) bt Rajasthan (Sumeet Kumar 25, Rajeev Kumar 24, Ashish Trivedi 17, Abbas Ali 11) 92-86 (21-15, 12-23, 33-29, 26-19)