Vizag, Delhi, Secunderabad YMCAs win
HERALD SPORTS DESK
PANJIM, FEB 10
Vishakapatnam YMCA began on a winning note at All-India inter-YMCA basketball tournament at Don Bosco’s Fr Benedict Furtado memorial indoor stadium here on Thursday.
Vishakapatnam YMCA got the better of Hyderabad YMCA with a facile 105-61 victory in their opening encounter. Visakapatnam clinched the lead early and there was no looking back, steadily building on it across the four quarters. They led 25-12 at the end of the first quarter and kept adding to their surplus every subsequent quarter. Quarter II (28-17), quarter III (31-18) and quarter IV (21-14).
K Tarun Kumar was the pick of the Visakapatnam boys top-scoring with 28 points, ably supported by V Srinivasa Rao (22). Prem Kumar was Hyderabad’s lone ranger (25).
In another match, New Delhi YMCA, last year’s runners-up, were lucky to score a come-from-behind win over a young and fighting YMCA’s College of Physical Education, Chennai. Only a solitary point separated the two teams with the score-line reading 60-59 in favour of Delhi.
Neeraj (15) and Saurabh (14) did the bulk of the scoring for Delhi while for Chennai, a stellar performance by Sridharan kept a packed stadium clapping incessantly. Unfortunately, he got little support from others in the team and his herculean effort aggregating 25 points, both through long-ranged three-pointers as well as speedy drive-ins, went abegging.
In the third encounter, YMCA Ernakulum put it across YMCA Secunderabad 71-50 in a bit of a see-saw game which saw the two teams level at one point before a late charge by the eventual winners. Ernakulum held their nerves in the home stretch and virtually demoralised the opponents by taking a huge eighteen-point lead in the last quarter.
Later, YMCA Fort Cochin defeated YMCA Kalyan in a low-scoring match. The final scoreline read 48-39 with Rashif and Iqbal contributing 12 each for the winners while Harshal (16) and Omkar (14) were the chief contributors for Kalyan.
Earlier, Fr Paul D’Sousa, Vice-Provincial of Konkan-Goa Salesians and Rector, Don Bosco, Panjim, declared the tournament open.
