Date:28/04/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/04/28/stories/2004042806762200.htm

Sport - Basketball

DRDO in last four

BANGALORE, APRIL 27. For the second successive day DRDO pulled the rug from under the feet of a fancied team. Beagles, last year's runner-up looked very casual against debutant DRDO and paid a heavy price for it.

DRDO, with Vipin once again leading the way, won 36-28 to make the semifinals of the State sub-junior basketball championship, for the Ramanashree Trophy for boys, at the Sree Kanteerava stadium here today.

Vijayanagar (Hospet) ended the run of Nationals (Mysore). Nationals, despite crushing defeats in both its earlier rounds, advanced this far thanks to protests and disqualification of holder JSC and Ambedkar S.A., in the first round. But on this day there was nothing to crow about as Nationals lost 8-17 to a better-equipped team.

Protests marred the other two quarterfinals but after medical examinations both Vivekananda (Mandya) and Merchants (Davangere) advanced to the round of four. Vivekananda downed Kanaka (Kolar) 35-29, while the Davangere side brushed aside Bharath Sports Union 38-6.

In the semifinals, Vivekananda will play DRDO, while Vijayanagar clashes with Merchants.

In the girls' section, reigning champion Beagles made amends for its boys' teams defeat with a 24-7 victory over Mounts Club and will play Mangalore's K.S. Hegde, a 34-16 winner over Rovers (Dharwad). Both the matches turned out to be one-sided.

In the other semifinals V.N. Sports Club will clash against Vivek Sports Club. While Vivek looked far too superior and won 20-7 against YMMA, V.N. Sports Club stopped Bangalore City Basketball Club (BCBC) in its tracks at 14-10.

The results (quarterfinals):

Boys: Vijayanagar (Hospet) 17 (Imran 6, Chetan 5) bt Nationals (Mysore) 8 (Vinay 8); DRDO 36 (Vipin Kumar 19) bt Beagles 28 (Adil Anis 13, Robert 6); Vivekananda (Mandya) 35 (Rakshit 11, Sujanpriya 6, Dilip 6) bt Kanaka (Kolar) 29 (Harish 9, Harsha 8, Vishwanath 6); Merchants (Davangere) 38 (Sarath 10, Pawan 6) bt Bharath SU 6 (Varun 4).

Girls: Beagles 24 (Keerthana 6, Madhuriya 6) bt Mounts 7; Vivek SC 20 (Manasa 4, R. Neha 4, Bhavana 4) bt YMMA 7 (Divya 4); K.S. Hegde 34 (Ramya 8, Sabiya 9) bt Rovers (Dharwad) 16 (Shruti 6, Shiny 6); VN Sports Club 14 (Mahima 5, Anupama 4) bt BCBC 10 (Aakruti 4).