Royal-Thomian clash in u-15 cager final

Angu Rajendran

In two exciting South Zone Under 15 cager semi-finals held at the Royal courts yesterday, between Royal and St. Joseph’s Nugegoda and S. Thomas’ and St. Sebastians, Royal and S. Thomas’ came out on top and will clash in the final today at 4 p.m. at the same venue.

In the first match Royal were behind at half whistle by 2 points. The score stood at 17/19 in favor of St. Joseph’s Nugegoda. However, Prasanna Jayasinghe, the Royal coach realizing that Joes completely depended on their one ace three point shooter Sameera Chanaka, put two players to defend him and avoid all the screens provided by his team-mates for him and completely rendered him useless in the third quarter. Royal’s forwards Ashen Matunka and Shamaz Shiraz scored easily to account for 25 points in the third quarter while St. Joseph’s scored only 3 points in the third quarter.

Using a five sector offense Royal proved that a dependence on just one or two players is not going to help a team win a game. The final score stood at 65/48 in Royal College’s favour. For Royal the top scorers were Ashen Matunka (17), Julian Gunasinghe(16), Shamaz Shiraz (14). While Sameera Chanaka (26) and Jude Tharindu (17) top scored for the losers.

In the second semi final S. Thomas’ proved their superiority in a rather rough game where the tallest player of the tournament from St. Sebastian’s Chenud Gavishka fouled out in the third quarter.

The Thomians were a well-moulded team, strong in their fundamentals and they led throughout the game. Only in the second quarter did the Sebastianites come close with a score of 30/33 but Thomian Michael Alphonsus scored a few quick baskets and built up the lead again.

Sebs could not break through the strong full-court man-to-man defense of S. Thomas’ and with the Sebs tallest rebounder benched in the fourth quarter, the Thomians had a field day to win with a score of 77/64.

Michael Alphonsus (39), Amal Amarawardene (17) and Avishka Ranasinghe (8) top scored for Thomians. Rajin Fernando (22), Kenneth Wickramasinghe(15) and Nishen Perera (15) top scored well for the losers.