Indian Railways women, the favourites for the title, scored a thumping 113-54 win over Punjab in the Senior National Basketball Championship here on Thursday.
Kerala women too maintained their fine start in the tournament, defeating Maharashtra 84-69.
Renu Maurya (16 pts), Bharti Netam (16 pts), Appoorva Muralinath (14 pts) and Sitamani Tudu (15 pts) were the top performers for the Indian Railways team, while Jeena PS (28 pts), Neenumol PS (25 pts) and Stephy Nixon (17 pts) led the charge for the team from Kerala.
Results: Level 1: Men: Services: 80 (Jairam Jat 19, Dalip K 19, Narender Grewal 13, Ramesh K 10) bt Kerala: 67 (Manoj R 22, Subash Shenoy 17, Albin Baby 11); Tamil Nadu: 91 (Prasanna Venkatesh 23, Amjyot Singh 19, Pratham Singh 17, G Sivabalan 13, Arvind A 11) bt Haryana: 66 (Himanshu S 17, Deepak R 11, Vikas K 11, Hemant S 10); Uttarakhand: 88 (Trideep Rai 27, Amritpal Singh 23, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi 18) bt Indian Railways: 50 (Prakash Mishra 14).
Women: Delhi: 72 (Pratima Singh 31, Prashanti Singh 17) bt Tamil Nadu: 64 (R Ramya 18, P Divya 16); Kerala: 84 (Jeena PS 28, Neenumol PS 25, Stephy Nixon 17) bt Maharashtra: 69 (Manisha Dange 23, Sruthi Menon 14); Indian Railways: 113 (Renu Maurya 16, Bharti Netam 16, Sitamani Tudu 15, Appoorva Muralinath 14) bt Punjab: 54 (Samrithi 18, Kirandeep Kaur 15, Nagma Mirza 12).
Qualifying Matches from Level 2 to Level 1: Men: Delhi: 78 (Pravin Dovan 22, Ajay Singh 18, Gaurav Ohlan 12) bt Maharashtra: 69 (Raj Kalbhor 29, Amit Gahlot 16); Telangana: 58 (M Vijaykumar 15, L Sujith 10) bt Chandigarh: 55 (Atul 14, Puneet Khanna 13).
Women: Telangana: 57 (Gayathri 25, Purnima 9) bt West Bengal: 54 (Kamlesh Jat 20, Salma Devi 15); Madhya Pradesh: 53 (Sakshi Pandey 15, Nima Doma Bhutia 13) bt Himachal Pradesh: 38 (Balvinder Kaur 13, Yogita 9).
Loser’s knockout quarterfinals: Men: West Bengal: 85 (R Prasad 14, MS Grewal 13, MK Singh 12, DK Yadav 12) bt Jharkhand: 82 (Nirmal Singh 34, Allen Peter 17, Devendra Melgaud 13); Andhra Pradesh: 66 (CH Navin 16, J Tarun 12) bt Assam: 36 (Pradeep Kumar 9, Badan Dey 6).