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IOB gets going; Andhra & Western Rly. in women's final
By M.C. Raman
Ivy Cherian of Western Railway finds the basket as Divya Singh and Prabhjot Kaur (10) of Delhi look on helplessly in their semifinal encounter of the 20th Federation Cup basketball championship at Vashi in Navi Mumbai on Friday.
It was a slow start by IOB and Army cashed in on it by taking a 10-9 lead. After that it was IOB all the way.
IOB's game looked smooth and the team overtook the rival quickly to take a 24-18 lead in the first quarter. It was a tough match against ONGC the other day when it got into serious problems because of turn-overs and a shaky defence.
But IOB organised its attack today and ball handler Gopinath set up nice passes for Sridhar and Shabeer to score.
Robinson was a bit slack in attack. But IOB surged to 43-35 at half-time.
Indian Army tried to match the pace, but floundered in shooting. Harendra Singh did well in outside shooting today, but in rebound collection the Armymen were beaten by Shabeer and Robinson.
In the third quarter IOB pushed the lead to 20 points and with a 25-16 scoreline IOB dashed Army's hopes. In the fourth quarter it was a virtual rout for the Army side as IOB basketed 25 points and Army just 10.
Western Rly. beats Delhi
Arnika Gujjar, a prolific scorer, struck a bad patch today, but pivot Ivy Cherian helped steer Western Railway, Mumbai to an exciting 50-38 victory over the National champion Delhi in the women's semifinal.
Delhi suffered its second defeat in two days.
Yesterday it went down to a fighting Chhattisgarh and today it put up another pathetic show against the Railway team that struggled from the beginning, but just managed to keep ahead because of its strong zone defence and rebound retrieving.
There was no doubt about Western Railway's supremacy. It has the best ball handler in Shanthi Saldanha.
With quick drive in and pass she prompted Western to fight, despite a poor start and indifferent shooting in the beginning.
Western's three pivots, Ivy Cherian, Sheeja Mathew and Maneka Antony give the team the height advantage.
Though Maneka is a bit inexperienced, Western made its zone defence strong and forced the Delhi girls to shoot from the outside.
Barring Sheeba Maggon, who could basket both from outside and inside, there was no Delhi player who could hit the hoop from outside.
Western's strong rebounding also made it worse for Delhi. In fact, both the teams missed easy chances. Delhi missed more today.
Western took a 8-3 lead in the first quarter, 17-14 in the second, 7-12 in the third and 18-9 in the fourth quarter in which Ivy played superbly both as a defender and attacker to steer Western out of trouble.
Delhi lacked cohesion from the beginning.
It was hopelessly beaten in the rebounding by the Railway girls, despite the presence of Rameshwari, Prabhjot Kaur and Divya. Rajalaskhmi and Rollin Sara came in now and then to shore up the game.
Delhi overtook the rival in the third quarter through Sheeba and it led 36-35 at one stage.
It was a good chance for Delhi to press home the advantage. But its defence was in a shambles and Ivy began to score.
With 11 points in the final minutes she made it safe for Western Railway.
Brilliant rally by Andhra
Andhra, made up of players mostly from South Central Railway, rallied brilliantly in the second half through a strong zone defence to beat a fighting Chhattisgarh 59-54 and move into the women's final.
It was indeed a great day for Andhra as it has never seen a big success in the Cup competition which is dominated by Railways, Kerala, Maharashtra and Bengal teams.
However, it was not an easy passage. The Chhattisgarh girls made them sweat for victory.
Unleashing three-pointers in the final minutes, Chhattisgarh made it close, but Andhra managed to hang on to the lead to win.
Chhattisgarh too had three Railway players in Seema Singh, its pivot, Anju Lakra and Poonam Singh. Poonam rattled Andhra with three-pointers. But Andhra, trailing 51-54, rallied strongly utilising Sofi Sam and Jetty Jose also basketed from close. They did the bulk of the scoring.
But in defence Sofi and Somini stood out preventing the quick-footed Chhattisgarh girls from grabbing the ball.
Andhra made a good start with a 16-11 lead in the first quarter, but Poonam and Anju helped Chhattisgarh to lead 30-27 at half-time. However, in the third and fourth quarters, Andhra led 14-12 and 18-12.
Comparatively, Andhra was a bit slow, but the team managed to win because of a better defence. Sofi came to the team's rescue in the final minutes.
Western railway takes on Andhra in the women's final tomorrow.
The results:
Men: semifinal: IOB 85 (Shabeer Ahmed 17, Sridhar 21) beat Indian Army 61 (Harendra Singh 21, Chotelal Sharma 13, Jaya Rengan 11).
Women: semifinals: Western Railway 50 (Arnika Gujjar 13, Ivy Cherian 16) beat Delhi 38 (Sheeba Maggon 19).
Andhra 59 (Sofi Sam 21, Jetty Jose 15) beat Chhattisgarh 54 (Poona Singh 20, Anju Lakra 14).
Thursday's results:
Men: Group B: Punjab Police 76 (Swaranjit Singh 12, Parminder Singh Sr. 21, Parminder Singh Jr. 12) bt Indian Army 48 (Chotelal Sharma 10).
Vijaya Bank 73 (Srinivasa Gowda 29, Ashraf Ali 22) bt Hyderabad dist. 44.
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