Haryana shocked former champion Railways 91-76 after leading 47-44 at halftime in a men’s group ‘A’ league match of the 65th National basketball championship at the Sukhadiya Indoor Stadium here on Friday.
With its second victory, Haryana ensured a quarterfinal berth behind Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu. Railways will have to play the pre-quarterfinals. In the other men’s group, Karnataka qualified as the third team behind Punjab and Services, thanks to its victories over Kerala and host Rajasthan.
Title-aspirant Uttarakhand wound up its campaign with an 80-47 victory over Chhattisgarh to top the group with a clean slate. Chhattisgarh was relegated as it failed to win a single match.From the lower groups, Delhi qualified for the upper groups next season as it beat Telangana 81-56. Both the teams made the pre-quarterfinals. In the women’s section, Telangana beat Madhya Pradesh 59-53 to secure a berth in the upper league for the next season. Both the teams qualified for the pre-quarterfinals.
In the other group, Railways, Delhi and Tamil Nadu made the cut for the quarterfinals, while Punjab pipped Uttar Pradesh to ensure a pre-quarterfinal berth.
The results (league): Men:Group A: Uttarakhand 80 (Amritpal Singh 27, Trideep Rai 17, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi 10) bt Chhattisgarh 47 (Ajay Pratap Singh 20, KiranpalSingh 15); Haryana 91 (Vikas Kumar 20, Himanshu Sharma 20, Deepak Rathee 19) bt Railways 76 (Hirender Singh 16).
Group B: Kerala 85 (R. Manoj 27, Basil Philip 22, Albin Baby 18) bt Rajasthan 66 (Harshvardhan 19, D. Sharad 16); Punjab 93 (Palpreet Singh 37, Satnam Sing 29) bt Karnataka 62 (Dhiraj Shetty 13). Women: Group A: Maharashtra 68 (Kennu Susan 20) bt Andhra Pradesh 43 (Kirandeep 18, Suryakumari 16, Shikha 10); Chhattisgarh 94 (Poonam Chaturvedi 37, Sangeeta Kaur 29, L. Deepa 15, Saranjeet Kaur 14, Aakanksha Singh 11) bt Karnataka 69 (L.S. Savitha 25, P.U. Navaneetha 14, H.M. Bhandavya 12).
Group B: Delhi 69 (Raspreet Sidhu 15, Prashanti Singh 12, Preeti Kumari 11) bt Uttar Pradesh 43 (Radha 15, Nimarika 12); Tamil Nadu 73 (M. Adhirai 14, D. Srividya 12) bt Punjab 40.
