NAGPUR: Having failed to stop the initial flurry of Chhattisgarh's fast break points, the
Maharashtra women cagers
suffered a 61-90 defeat in the quarterfinals of the 68th Senior National
Basketball
Championship at the Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Monday.
With this 29-point defeat, Maharashtra suffered yet another quarterfinal exit from the national championship conducted by the Basketball Federation of India.
For starters, Chhattisgarh, the former national champions, went out all offensive in the first period and converted as many as 16 fast break points to take a handy 16-point advantage at the end of initial 10 minutes. While Maharashtra missed 21 field goals of the 25 attempts they took, Chhattisgarh scripted their biggest scoring run (23-6) to dominate the first quarter.
The state cagers fought back in the second period, winning 18-16, as Chhattisgarh claimed 14-point lead at the halfway stage.
After the change of ends, Maharashtra tried to give Chhattisgarh a taste of their own medicine by scoring eight fast break points and bring down the lead to 11. Though Maharashtra won the third period 26-23 but a wayward shooting in the final frame - where they missed as many as 17 field goals in the 20 attempts they took - allowed Chhattisgarh to dominate the last quarter 25-7 and post a facile 29-point win.
A lowly 27 percent shooting - just 26 successful attempts out of their 95 field goals - proved fatal for Maharashtra. For Chhattisgarh, experienced
Anju Lakra
scored a game-high 26 points while country’s tallest hoopster Poonam Chaturvedi contributed 22 points.
In Maharashtra’s losing cause, Nagpur’s second international cager, Mugdha Amraotkar, registered her second double double with 17 points and 13 rebounds while Thane forward Carina Menezes netted a team-high 18 points and Pune forward Shruti Sherigar contributed 10 points. Skipper and Maharashtra’s most experienced forward
Shireen Limaye
though played her part in the defense by pulling 16 rebounds, she failed to find the net and scored a lowly 10 points. Of the 24 attempts she took, Shireen scored just four including one of the 13 three-pointers. She also missed all the eight field goals she attempted in the first quarter and converted just one of the six attempts in the final frame which proved costly for Maharashtra.
Much like Shireen, almost all the Maharashtra players missed most of their attempts. While Shruti scored just four from the 19 attempts she took, Mugdha missed 17 (8-25) and Carina converted seven of the 15 field goals. Lanky Mumbai North guard Sakshi Arora, in her 25-minute stay on the court, managed just two points from four attempts and Pune’s shooting guard Rupali Tripathi missed all the four field goals in her 14 minute appearance on the court.
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