PANJIM, FEB 14
Poona YMCA beat Vishakapatnam YMCA 75-68 in the exciting finals of inter-YMCA basketball tournament for Dalton McClalland Trophy at Don Bosco indoor stadium, here on Sunday.
An interesting feature of Poona’s play was that their starting five played from start-to-finish without resorting to any substitution, a rarity in basketball.
Siddhant Shinde was the pick of the Poona lads, who dazzled the fans and his opponents alike with some deft shooting and smart defending. He alone accounted for 42 points, including five clean three-pointers that were a treat to watch. He even shared the burden of ball-handling for his team alongwith one of the Irani siblings that made up Poona’s playing five.
It would be injustice to the Irani brothers – Rashid, Kaizad and Sarfaraz – if their contribution to Poona’s title-winning effort were to go unmentioned. The trio notched up 29 points.
J Tarun Kumar was in excellent form and contributed to his team’s tally 29 points which he got through long-ranged three-pointers and quick burst of speeds to complete fast-breaks. Their playmaker T Venkateshwara (12) and Srinivasa Rao (11) ably supported Kumar, however, fell short of the Poona side.
Meanwhile, Ernakulam YMCA took the bronze medal winning their third-place match against last year’s runners-up Delhi YMCA 77-54.
Earlier on Sunday morning, Poona had earned their final slot defeating Delhi 89-76 while Vishakapatnam beat Ernakulam 64-54 in their semi-final outing.
Pravin Zantye was the chief guest and gave away the prizes. Another surprise visitor at the finals was Opposition leader, Manohar Parrikar, MLA.
Meanwhile, all the four semi-finalists were given a free holiday-package by Panjim YMCA president, P M Vaz, at Manvins.
Earlier, in the league matches, Panjim YMCA ended on a winning note upsetting their Hyderabad counterparts 54-50.
Besides Francisco, the Panjim side also saw some valuable contributions from Royston Fernandes (10) and Brendon Mascarenhas (9). For Hyderabad, it was Tirupathi (22) and Beam Kumar (9).
