Winning start for Nagpur hoopsters

NAGPUR: City cagers were off to a flying start in the 41st Maharashtra State Sub-Junior Basketball Championship which began at the KD Shanbagh Vidyalaya in Satara on Friday.
The four-day Inter-District tourney is being organized by Maharashtra State Basketball Association. From this meet the state sub-junior teams in both the boys and girls section will be selected for the national tourney, slated to be played at Nashik from November 22 to 29.
While the U-13 Nagpur boys team kick started their campaign with a thumping 28-point (44-16) win over Ahmednagar, city girls’ squad outclassed Aurangabad 24-17 in their opening tie.
In the boys’ section, Sharvil Bomanwar (12) and point guard Smit Joshi (11) combined well to share 23 points between them as city cagers maintained their lead in all the quarters to emerge victorious. The quarter-wise progress of Nagpur read 12-8, 10-2, 12-2, 10-4.
The girls’ tournament opener, however, was a low scoring affair. After taking a handy three-point (10-7) advantage in the initial period Nagpur blanked Aurangabad 8-0 in the second quarter to stretch the lead further to 11 points at the breather.
After the change of ends, Aurangabad made a comeback by winning the third and fourth quarters by an identical scores of 3-5 but Nagpur girls’ defensive strategy helped them sail through with a seven-point win. For the winners, Mallika Thakare (5) and Ruta Kothari (4) played well.