A much improved Jayanagar Sports Club battled rain and first half deficit to score a stunning 86-79 win over fancied Karnataka State Police in the State ‘A’ Division basketball league for Prof N C Parappa Memorial Trophy at the Beagles courts here on Saturday.

KSP, who trailed by 19-21 at the end of first quarter, seized the initiative in the second quarter through Mahesh S G and Bharath as Cops lead for the first time in the match. It needed the individual brilliance of Shah Sunder, who directed a Bharath rebound to the net, to fetch a three point lead in favour of KSP at 34-31 at half time.

After the break, Jayanagar came back into the game mainly due to the good defensive work by Siddhu and an excellent show upfront by Kaushal, who scored 23 points. The match got hot up as JSC’s Charan exchanged heated words with referee for being penalised for a foul on Mahesh. JSC coach Srinivas was too pulled up for coming too far out of the bench in support of his ward. Referee gave four foul throws for KSP — two foul throws each for personal and technical foul.

Mahesh, who took the foul throws, put all the four with ease. And it seemed as if KSP got their rhythm back, rain took centre stage mid-way through the third quarter. The play started an hour later with much credit to the Beagles Sports Club’s boys and girls who did an excellent work to dry the court so quickly.
The break hardly had any effect on the JSC hoopsters as they basketted with ease to end the third quarter 59-52. JSC’s Dharshan, off-colour till then, came up with a couple of three pointers and two pointers to secure a 12-point cushion in the fourth quarter.  Though the Cops made a valiant effort and reduced the lead in the closing minutes, it was too late to alter the script.

Apart from Kaushal, Darshan basketted 13 points for JSC while Mahesh’s match high 27 points and Bharath (23) efforts for KSP went in vain.

Results: JSC: 86 (Dharshan 13, Kaushal 23) bt KSP: 79 (Mahesh S G 27, Bharath 23). HT: 31-34; HASC: 82 (Uma Shanker 18, Sachindra 38) bt Sports Hostel: 79 (A R Varun 22, M R Varun 23, Rabbani 18). HT: 26-37; Beagles SC: 48 (Markesh 22, Pushparaj 10) bt Koramangala SC: 43 (Abhishek 10, Karan Raj 10). HT 21-19.