Mysuru: Riding on strong performances from Divya P. and Ramya R., Telangana marched into the semifinals of the 66th Senior National Basketball Championships in Mysuru on Thursday. Divya shot 26 points while Ramya with 19 helped underdogs Telangana thump Tamil Nadu 72-50 to advance.
In the other women’s quarterfinals, Delhi turned the tables on defending champions Chhattisgarh to book their final-four berth. Chhattisgarh’s Poonam Chaturvedi, 2015 MVP, put up 44 points shooting 83 per cent from the field. But her rebounding numbers were down, as all five Delhi players crashed the boards, making life difficult for Poonam. The rest of Chhattisgarh’s team provided little support to Poonam.
Pratima Singh, who scored 36 points and had 7n assists, carried Delhi’s scoring load. Her sister Prashanti Singh put up 24 points and veteran shooter Raspreet Sidhu contributed timely buckets with 12 points in the contest. Delhi pulled away late to close out the game with a 84-76 victory. Punjab women bounced back from their below par group stage performance with a 84-66 victory against Rajasthan in the pre-quarterfinals. Punjab will face Kerala women in their quarterfinal later.
In another last-16 encounter, West Bengal registered an emphatic victory against Maharashtra, continuing their impressive run in the tournament. West Bengal’s big three of Madhu Kumari, Anjana Dezy and Libina all scored above 20 points to lead their side to a blowout 82-50 victory.
The results:
Women’s quarterfinals: Telangana (Divya P. 26, Ramya R. 19, Anusha Anto 12) bt Tamil Nadu (Varshanandini R. 10, Nishanthi Masi 9) 70-52; Delhi (Pratima Singh 36, Prashanti Singh 24, Raspreet Sidhu 12) bt Chhattisgarh (Poonam Chaturvedi 44, Bharti N. 11, Saranjeet Kaur 8, Sangeeta K. 8) 84-76; Indian Railways (Rajapriyadarshini 14, Smruthi Radhakrishnan 13, Shruti Menon 13) bt West Bengal (Sanma D. 17, Anjana Dezy 11, Madhu Kumari 10) 80-44; Kerala (Jeena P.S. 10, Neenumol P.S. 10) bt Punjab (Indu Kumari 12) 58-24.
