Indian Navy (Lonavala) raised its game in the final quarter to beat a fighting Indian Railways (Delhi) 83-70 in the final of the 55 th all India basketball tournament for men, for the Nachimuthu Gounder Cup, at the VOC Park Sports Complex courts here on Friday.
Railways called the shots in the first two quarters but the Navy men waited for the right time to strike and, so they did in the third. They further applied the pressure in the final five minutes to emerge a clear winner and take a cash purse of ₹1 lakh.
In the CRI Pumps Trophy for women, P.S. Jeena (30pts) guided KSEB (Thiruvananthapuram) to a comfortable 64-39 win over South Western Railway (Hubli) for the title. The winner was richer by ₹50,000. Eastern Railway’s Nima Doma Bhutia was declared the most promising player.
The results:
Men: Final: Indian Navy (Lonavala) 83 (Gurwinder Singh 19, Gaurav Chandel 15) bt Indian Railways (Delhi) 70 (Ayush 25, Daniel 15, Jeya Venkatesh 14). Third place: KSEB 72 (Jishnu G Nair 22, Rahul Sarath 11, A.S. Sarath 10) bt Indian Air Force 53 (Rajan 13, Santosh 11).
Women: Final: KSEB 64 (P.S. Jeena 30, S. Susan Florentina 14) bt South Western Railway (Hubli) 39 (C.L. Rini 12). Third place: Kerala Police (Thiruvananthapuram) 63 (V.J. Jeyalakshmi 18, M.S. Athira 12, Rosemary Sajan 13) bt Eastern Railway (Kolkata) 61 (Nima Doma Bhutia 19, P.P. Nivya Raj 15, Avanti Vardhan 11).
