AIS beat Royal 72-63

Anuradha Abeysekera

Asian International School (AIS), Colombo tamed Royal College, Colombo 72-63 in their own den and booked a semi-final berth in the National School Games' under-19 boys' Basketball Championship when the two teams battled it out in the quarter-finals yesterday.

First half saw a tense contest with both teams scoring back to back points to overcome each other. AIS lads managed to retain the lead in the first half scoring just a one point ahead at half time 34-33. Winners came up with their usual aggressive attack in the second half where Royalists found it hard to cope with. Royal boys tried hard to counter attack, but the strong AIS defense proved their efforts were not enough.

AIS managed to widen the gap during the latter part of the second half putting more pressure on Royalists. They made their way to semis beating Royal with a considerable nine-point margin. Dimitri Grebe and Praveen Ganlath were the best scores for winners and contributed with 18 and 16 points respectively while Bevan Samuel and Kenneth Wickramasinghe scored 10 points each. Sandeepa Perera scored 14 points for Royal while Juliyan Gunasinghe and Sameera Chanaka added 12 points each.

Initially the final was scheduled to play today at Royal College but the tournament will be extended further due to bad weather condition prevailing in Colombo.