Colombo District girls upset Schools’ Cagers

National Basketball Championships:

Angu Rajendran

In an amazing turn of events Colombo District beat Sri Lanka Schools despite lagging behind at half time by eight points. Until the third quarter, the favorites Sri Lanka Schools seemed to be in complete control. These Youth definitely had the upper hand as they converted Buddhika and Lahiruka controlled the game and converted all their baskets.

Sri Lanka Schools led throughout the first half right from the jump ball though Colombo District was not far behind. At the end of the first quarter the scores were 16/12 in favor of Sri Lanka Schools.

Solanji Wijeguna of the School’s team collected all the defensive and offensive rebounds making the Colombo District players commit lot of fouls.

During the half time break, the scores stood at 31/23 in the Schools favour, the experienced Colombo District players who realized that since both teams practice together at St Joseph’s girls school they had no secret strategies that they could use and decided to ‘freelance’.

Captain Shenali Weerasinghe of the Colombo District said ‘during half time we decided to take one basket at a time – to make a basket and defend a basket and that really worked.’

The bringing in of the tall but very inexperienced Krishni Fernando in the third quarter paid dividends to Colombo District as she immediately scored two quick baskets and closed the lead.

At the end of the third quarter the scores stood at 47/43 in favour of Colombo District with Sulochana(CD) scoring an amazing basket from the half court line on the buzzer.

With renewed gusto Colombo District played the fourth quarter leading to the end to finish with 67/62 despite the scores tying many times during the last ten minutes of the game.

For Colombo District Erandhi Kaushalya was in top form scoring easily from zero to account for 22 points.

Captain Shenali scored 19 points and played an athletic game with amazing speed and stamina.

For the School girls towering Solanji who did not play her usual under the basket game scored 27 points mostly from outside the D. Lahiruka also scored 11 points for them. In the other one-sided semi final Mercantile team beat Air Force team – 82/37. For Mercantile Premila top scored with 20 points and Dilani 17 points.

For the Air Force team V Iyenka top scored with 13 points. Air Force did not manage to combine as a team until the last quarter and by that time it was too late.

The finals will be between the Colombo District team and the Mercantile team at the Police Park today at 5 pm.

In the first semifinal of the Mens National Basketball Championship Colombo District Cagers outplayed the much fancied Air Force 84 points to 68 yesterday at the Police Depot Basketball Courts.

Colombo District will clash with the winner of the next semi final between Mercantile BA and Sri Lanka Schools BA today at the same venue. At the time of going to press the other semifinal was in progress.