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Pune’s Deccan gymkhana girls give St Mary’s a tough competition for the title
Contrasting finals: St Mary’s School made to sweat before scoring a 49-44 victory over Deccan Gymkhana Club; ABC Sports Club records one-sided 48-24 victory over Millennium National School
Over confidence on the minds of the St Mary’s School girls’ team made them sweat hard to earn the title, while a hunger for victory made the ABC Sports Club champions in the under-13 basketball tournament.
On Tuesday evening at the Pride English School, Ambegaon-Budruk, the finals turned out be contrasting affairs as St Mary’s scored a hard-fought 49-44 victory over Deccan Gymkhana Club, while in the boys’ section, ABC Sports Club defeated Millennium National School 48-24.
Third place in the boys and girls sections were DAV Public School and Millennium National School, respectively. DAV defeated Falcons Sports Club, while Millennium overcame Chonde Patil Basketball Academy.
In the girls’ final, Deccan Gymkhana started on an attacking note and kept the St Mary’s girls on their toes in the first quarter.
St Mary’s finally got their act together in the last three minutes of the first quarter and took a 15-10 lead.
In the second quarter, St Mary’s finally came into form with defence and attack both coming good.
For Deccan Gymkhana it was Janhvi Kakade who was doing most of the scoring. For St Mary’s, Keya Pungliya kept adding baskets as team went into half time with the score line of 28-20.
After changing ends, Deccan Gymkhana looked a completely different team and at one moment the score was 32-30, with Deccan Gymkhana trailing by two points.
In the next five minutes the game swung again in favour of St Mary’s as five consecutive baskets help them end the third quarter on high with score line reading 42-30.
In the final quarter, Deccan girls had their chances, but their inability to accelerate in last few minutes cost them a victory.
“St Mary’s had defeated us easily in the league stage so with that comparison, my team showed great character to fight and in the end, it was a matter of a few baskets which kept away from the title,” said Prasad Yeravdekar, coach of Deccan Gymkhana Club.
“This hard fought victory will teach lesson to our team and in future they will be not be complacent. We also gave chances to a few new players and our star players did not perform that great in final,” said Arun Chopade, St Mary’s School.
In the boys’ final, defending champions Millennium National School took 11-4 lead in the first quarter, but failed to deliver knockout punch in the next three quarters to go down 24-48 against ABC Sports Club.
Maneet Agarwal was the top scorer for ABC Sports Club with 12 points.
Results Girls
St Mary’s School 49 (Rashi Pittie 11, Keya Pungliya 10) bt Deccan Gymkhana Club 44 (Janhvi Kakade 16, Ashimka Badade 10)
Third place: Millennium National School 39 (Annanya Gupta 14, Riya Patwardhan 12) bt Chonde Patil Basketball Academy 28 (Sara Chopade 10, Swarali Tambe 8)
Results Boys
Final: ABC Sports Club 48 (Maneet Agarwal 12, Chirag Birasdar 8) bt Millennium National School 24 (Murnmaye Borse 8, Ankur Shah 7)
DAV Public School 29 (Aditya Patil 10, Soham Gatt 8) bt Falcons Basketball Club 21 (Kapil Hare 7, Aryan Gandhi 5)
Coach Talk
Girls
Arun Chopade, St Mary’s girls school
Team was little bit over-confident so they were playing casually in the first half. In the second half, our team scored a few quick baskets which helped us to take the lead and in the end and it helped us win.
Prasad Yeravdekar, Deccan Gymkhana Club
Players with good height in the St Mary’s team did the trick for their team. No doubt my team played really well, but opponents were physically stronger than us.
Boys:
Dashrath Birhamane, coach, Millennium National school
We started well, but the opponents came out with a brave performance in third and fourth quarter. Height of the players from both the teams turned out to be major factor. Most of the players from ABC Academy have good height.
Anirudh Pole, Coach, ABC Academy
This was our first victory in the under-13 category. Last year we had lost all our matches. Credit to the boys that they reached the finals for the first time and pulled out a stunning victory
