Under-19 cager finalists found

Angu Rajendran

The second semi-final of the International Schools U-19 basketball tournament between the Asian International School and Colombo International School was held yesterday. CIS beat AIS 57/36 to enter the final. CIS took an early lead scoring 24 and AIS only six in the first quarter alone.

The CIS Coach realizing that only one player on the AIS team was scoring adopted the zone defence, crowding the area and a very speedy offense to outplay the AIS man-to-man zone defence. It took two quarters for the AIS team to settle down to score but by then the lead was too big. The score at half time whistle was 32-13 in CIS favour. CIS played as a well-moulded team. When their key player Prashastha Hemachandra was closely guarded, the other four took over confusing the AIS defence.

Many a time it seemed as if the AIS players were hesitant to shoot and would rather pass.

They did not possess any particular offensive or defensive strategy to suit the opposing team. AIS missed a lot of shots and it cost them the game. For CIS Prashastha Hemachandra (29), Onesh de Silva (10) and Vijitharan Ranjan (9) top scored and for AIS, Yahren Tissera (17) and Janith (8) top scored. CIS will now meet Lyceum Nugegoda in the final today at 6 pm.