INDORE: Hosts Madhya Pradesh, women title contenders Maharashtra and teams from Tamil Nadu kick started their campaign with facile victories in the 74th junior national basketball championship which began at the Emerald Heights International School in Indore on Wednesday.
While MP women utilized their home conditions well to outplay Rajasthan 86-61, Maharashtra outclassed Gujarat 84-71 and made their intentions clear of regaining the national title.
Tamil Nadu teams in both the men and women section won their respective opening day games with ease. After TN women — the defending champions — made light work of arch-rivals Karnataka 92-58, their men drubbed Odisha by as many as 58 points (106-48).
For hosts MP women an attacking start gave them a deserving 35-point win over Rajasthan. For the winners Khushi Pal Singh scored a game-high 22 points as Gunvi Agarwal (15) and Mansi Viswakarma (11) played pivotal roles. The quarter-wise progress for MP read 25-9, 25-17, 23-14, 13-21.
In an interesting clash, Maharashtra got the better of Gujarat women 84-71. Playing an attacking game helped Maharashtra jump to a handy 15-point advantage. After dominating the first quarter Maharashtra and never looked back.
For the winners, Samiksha Patil (25) and Aanaya Bhavsar (20) did the bulk of the scoring as Muskan Singh (10), Gunjan Mantri (9) and Rajvi Maladhari (8) made timely contributions. For Gujarat, Aradhana Patel scored a game-high 25 points while Aahana George (17) and Archi Patel (13) scored in double digits but failed to match Maharashtra.
Though Gujarat won the battle of boards 64-61 by collecting as many as 28 offensive rebounds, they failed to stop Maharashtra’s bench from scoring and lost the contest by 13 points.
Gujarat men, however, brought the cheers back in their camp. In an exciting men’s tie, Gujarat recorded a come-from-behind 85-63 win over Pondicherry. For the winners Ronaldo Hopikins (26) and Jigarsinh Gohil (24) combined well to score 50 of the 85 points netted by their team. The quarter-wise scores for Gujarat read 16-21, 22-13, 17-18, 30-11.
RESULTS (Day 1)
