YMCA Secunderabad dethrone Customs & GST, meet mighty SCR in final

SECUNDERABAD: In a major upset, YMCA Secunderabad stunned defending champions Customs & GST 74-70 in the semifinals of the 3rd Samuel Vasanth Kumar Memorial Basketball Tournament on Friday night.
In a stunning reversal of fortunes, YMCA, who was down and out in the first half of the game, came back strongly to pip the champions. YMCA were trailing 25-43 against the mighty customs side and an 18-point deficit against a strong side like Customs virtually meant that YMCA had no chance of staging a comeback and their dreams of making the final lay shattered.
But the youngsters picked up the broken threads in the second half of play and weaved a stirring comeback which knocked Customs out of the tournament.YMCA hoopsters scored 49 points during this inspired period as their offensive play paid rich dividends. They also defended stoutly and denied Customs easy baskets as the reigning champions found the going tough. Customs could score only 27 points as their gameplan lay in shambles.
YMCA earned the right to take on favourites South Central Railway and will have their task cut out in the final on Saturday. They will need another inspiring feat on the morrow.
SCR continued to be on a roll but was made to struggle a wee bit by Sanathnagar Playground before emerging victorious at 88-65 in the first semifinal. At half-time, the winners led 52-30.
Sanathnagar hoopsters ran the Railwaymen close in the opening quarter, the latter piling up fouls and not on target with their outside shooting. The former put up stiff resistance, jealously guarding their backboard, leaving their much taller opponents little space to penetrate their tight defence.
As the match progressed, however, Sanathnagar couldn’t regroup in defence effectively and Railways’ pivot and top-scorer Raju M capitalized on it. Backing him up in the attack was Vijay, with five three-pointers in his tally of 23, and Santosh Mani who had 20 points.
Just when Sanathnagar was being written off, they came back strongly in the third quarter thanks to shooter Nikhil, point guards Shiva Teja Yadav and Shoaib Khan.
Shoaib was a pocket-sized dynamo, his mushroom haircut a sight to behold as he zipped to and fro, his height in stark contrast to the towering Railway defenders. His 45-degree three-pointer was stunning as were his many speedy rushes to the rival citadel. But Railways proved a bit handful for Sanathnagar, who had last week won a tournament.
The results (SFs): South Central Railway 88 (Raju M 24, Vijay 23, Santosh Mani 20, Mallaiah 10) bt Sanathnagar Playground 65 (Nikhil 22, Shiva Teja Yadav 15, Shoaib Khan 12). YMCA Secunderabad 74 (Ashu Tyagi 25, Samuel 16, Varma 14, Allen 13 ) bt Customs & GST 70 (Ch Varma 18, Venkat 17, Merugu Vijay 16, Harish 9). QFs: YMCA Secunderabad 69 (Ashu Tyagi 24, Samuel 24, Allen 16) bt Eagles Club 67 (Abhishek 19, Tribhuvan 16, Aman 15). Sanathnagar Playground 103 (Shiva 32, Pruthvi 23, Sai 12) bt Victory Playground 85 (Naveen 19, Vamshi 16, Salman 14). South Central Railway 79 (Vijay Kumar 30, Santosh Mani 19, Kaushik 10) bt Saints 41 (Pratik Gona 11). Customs & GST 92 (M Vijay Kumar 41, Venkat Reddy 15, M Harish Chowdary 17) bt Young Men’s Guild 84 (Prudhvishwar Reddy 24, Chris Veeresh 19, Sai Krishna 19).