Jharkhand upset Chattisgarh in sub junior basketball

Kapurthala, June 15 (UNI) Giving a spirited display Jharkhand boys shocked last year runners-up Chattisgarh in Pool B by 36-35 points in the 35th Sub-Junior National Basketball Championship here today.

Chattisgarh were leading by 35-34 with only two seconds left.

However, at this stage, a foul committed by Akash Bagchi of Chattisgarh fetched two free throws. Arun Mehta of JharKhand, converted these to snatch an exciting one point victory for his team.

At end of the first quarter, Chattisgarh was leading by 12-11.

Jharkhand took four points lead in the second quarter, the score being 17-21 in favour of Jharkhand. Again, in the third quarter Chattishgarhgained one point lead by 29-28. They maintained the slender lead till last two seconds and were unlucky to lose the match.

For Jharkhand, Akash Nayak (12 points), Nitesh (4 points), Md Nasim (4), Maninder (6) and Arun Mehta (4) were the main scorers.

Ajay Partap Singh (16), Akash Bagchi (8) and Bal Krishna (6) were the principal scorers for Chattisgarh.

In a boys pool D fixture, Tamilnadu beat MP by 53-46 points, after having tied at 25-all at the end of second quarter. In another pool D encounter, Kerala beat Chandigarh by 46-13 points.

In pool C, Gujarat boys were no match for speedy Rajasthan boys who recorded an effortless 59-06 points verdict.

In the girls section Pool A match champions Chattisgarh outplayed Gujarat in all departmetns of the game to score a cakewalk win by 80-05 points.

In a pool E match Madya Pradesh girls defeated Rajasthan by 29-18 points, after gaining a lead of six points ( 16-10) at the end of second quarter.

In pool F Jharkhand girls exhibiting skills and speed defeated Kerala by 35-16 points.

The heavy down poor of rain could not dampen the sprit of the organizers. A good number of volunteers worked so hard to clean the grounds repeatedly .

UNI XC HS BP1817