Semifinal line up for men's team drawn up

Jamshedpur, Oct 31 (UNI) Strong contender Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) will meet Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) while Punjab is slated to lock horn with ONGC in the men's semi finals in the 22nd Federation Cup Basketball Champaionship at JRD Tata Sports complex here tomorrow.

In the Pool A match today, KSEB trounced North Western Railways by 102-76 points to secure semifinal berth. Kerala cagers dominated the proceedings to surge ahead of Railways men by 51-42 during half time.

But in the second half KSEB played like an overhauled machine and did not give much opportunity to their opponent. Harish and V R Mathew were the highest scorers for KSEB with 29 and 19 points respectively while for the Railways team Lokesh Yadav basketted 33 times followed by M P Singh (14).

In the same pool ONGC (Uttranchal) despite losing to Indian Army by a close margin 81-88 today managed to sneaked into the last four stage as the Armymen lost to KSEB lastnight 61-95 and ONGC was through on better point average.

ONGC despite equipped with six international cagers faced strong challenges from Indian Army, which took lead 43-36 in the half-time.

Armymen had to pack up despite a good show. For ONGC S Sridhar basketted 20 times while Jairm of Indian Army scored 24 points.

In the other match from Pool B Punjb defeated Vijaya Bank (Karnataka) 69-41 points to enter into the semis. The Bankmen initially played agressively but later succumbed to well-organised move by the Punjab cagers,who led by 41-25 during the lemon break.

Intenationals Jagdip Singh and Yaduvendra Singh scored 26 and 25 points for the winner while Roshan scored 15 points for Vijaya Bank.

IOB became the first team from Pool B to qualify to the last four stage last nihgt defeating Punjab 82-66.

In the women's semifials Western Railways will meet Chhatisgarh whle Delhi will face Kerala tomorrow.

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