Defending champion Kerala girls edged out Tamil Nadu 76-75 to enter the semifinals of the National Junior Basketball championships here on Saturday.
Kerala came back from behind to stun the in-form Tamil Nadu side. Kerala girls, who trailed by seven points at half-time, won the third and fourth quarters by decisive margins to score a one-point win. Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan completed the semifinal line-up in the girls’ section.
In the boys’ category, Karnataka beat Delhi 77-68 to enter semifinals, while Uttar Pradesh edged out Kerala 68-65.
The results (quarterfinals):
Quarterfinals: Boys: Karnataka 77 (B.M. Manoj 31, Achintya Krishna 16, Pratam Shetty 10) bt Delhi 68 (Sushanth Dhanda 29); Uttar Pradesh 68 (Kushal Singh 18, Aman Kaushik 11, Robin Banerjee 11) bt Kerala 65 (Pranav Prince 22, C.K. Abhinav 19).
Girls: Punjab 90 (Kavya Singla 17, Manmeet Kaur 17, Kanishka Dhir 12) bt Maharashtra 69 (Aanya Bhavsar 20, Sameeksha 15).
Chhattisgarh 69 (Riya 22, D.Kirti 14, Amisha Gaikwad 12) bt Madhya Pradesh 61(Manvi Srivastava 23, Prathana Salve 12); Kerala 76 (P.S. Jesely 21, R. Abhirami 14, Irin Elsa John 11) bt Tamil Nadu 75 (K. Sathya 24, Yuvashree 16, Angel Jeevanath 14); Rajasthan 42(Rashi 14) bt Karnataka 41 (Sanjana 19, Pavana 12) .
