TMG, SNG to contest in men’s final

The women’s final will be contested between Western Railway and Central Railway. Western destroyed Deccan Gymkhana 104-25 while Central ran over surprise semi-finalists Savio Club 67-32.

TMG’s superior defending and their ability to rattle the opponents with speed and fast breaks worked in their favour. TMG’s trio of Shibu George, Mahesh Naidu and Clarence Menezes were once again the architects of their victory. George controlled the play while Naidu and Menezes were good in the offence today.

TMG were not the usual self but picked up the pace later on. They were also helped in their cause by the Pravara Nagar players who preferred to hang around the periphery and not make any drive-in attempts. TMG, so good in not allowing any opponent to break in, made most of the advantage to gain a 10-point lead.

After Pravara Nagar realised their folly and they started scoring more and even bridged to gap to just five points (34-29) just before half-time.But that’s when TMG ran away with the game. They scored nearly 15 points to Pravara’s 2 and the latter’s challenge fell through.

In the second semi-final, the effective bottling up of ball distributor Paresh Thorat virtually changed the complexion of the game. Deccan Gymkhana looked like giving their opponents a good fight and led 8-4 in this low-scoring error-prone match.

But SNG captain, Pankaj Deshmukh hustled Thorat so much that the Pune team had to replace him. That virtually finished the fight AS sng went on a 22-3 run to lead 26-11. After a low-scoring first half (21-11 SNG led), the Nagpur outfit scored more freely in the second to make it one-sided.

RESULTS: Men’s semi-finals: TMG 89 (Mahesh Naidu 25, Shibu George 20, Clarence Menezes 16) bt Pravara Nagar 68 (Vinay Sheoran 21, Rehan Shaikh 19, Vishal Bagi 12); SNG59 (Pankaj Deshmukh 15, Shrihari Garge 14) bt bt Deccan Gymkhana 38 (Paresh Thorat 9, Adil Abdul Jabbar 8).

Women’s semi-finals: Western Railway 104 (Ivy Cherian 23, Lincy Joseph 30, Shanti Saldanha 11) bt Deccan Gymkhana 25 (Rekha Nanellu 13, Kajal Ambedkar 9); Central Railway 67 (Jeo Jose 19) bt Savio Club 32 (Loveena Figueiredo 17, Lovita Figueiredo 11).