Titans, YMCA Secunderabad enter final after thrilling wins

Titans and YMCA Secunderabad entered the final of the BM John Vinayasager Basketball Tournament after narrow semifinal wins. Titans staged a 70-69 comeback against GHMC Sanathnagar, while YMCA Secunderabad defeated Nizam Basketball Academy 70-66 in a close contest

Hyderabad: Titans scored a thrilling 70-69 comeback win over GHMC Sanathnagar as they trailed 34-48 at half time to set up a final showdown with host YMCA Secunderabad, who also scored a thrilling 70-66 win over Nizam Basketball Academy, though YMCA Secunderabad led 45-26 at half time in the BM John Vinayasager Basketball Tournament being conducted by YMCA Secunderabad Alumni at YMCA Secunderabad.

It was a showdown of three-point shooting as both teams boasted of accurate 3-point shooters in their ranks Chris and Surya for Titans, whereas Sudershan and Nikhil for GHMC Sanathnagar. Titans’ Chris and Surya scored three three-pointers whereas Sudershan and Nikhil scored five three-pointers between them as GHMC Sanathnagar took the first quarter 25-19.

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In the second quarter, both teams tightened their defence around the three-point shooters, though Chris managed to sink two 3-pointers of the 15 points added to the tally of Titans.

GHMC on the other hand used the towering height of Jasim, Tejendra and Bharath to score from the paint, taking a comfortable 48-34 lead at half time, a total lead of 14 points.

After change of ends, Titans switched to tight man-to-man marking and restricted GHMC Sanathnagar to just seven points and in turn played a fast-paced game to score 22 points through Vignesh, Surya and Kunal to clear the 14-point deficit and lead by one point 56-55 at end of third quarter. In the see-saw fourth quarter, both teams were scoring basket to basket. GHMC’s Sudershan and Tejendra combined well to score 14 points; however, they were just unable to stop Nandit who scored successive five points for Titans to win the match 70-69.

In the other semifinal, YMCA’s Nathan scored two three-pointers and combined well with Samuel to score a massive 27 points between them to take the first quarter 27-13. In the second quarter, Ashish and Rakesh joined the scoring spree to further add 18 points.

The scores: Semifinals: YMCA Secunderabad 70 (Nathan 26, Samuel 10, Ashish 10, Rakesh 10) bt Nizam BA 66 (Aravind 24, Majid 16).
Titans 70 (Vignesh 23, Chris 13, Nandit 11, Kunal 10) bt GHMC Sanathnagar 69 (Sudershan 22, Tejendra 17).