Southern Blues enter semifinals

Blues, who dominated proceedings earlier in the day against Devanga Sports Union in their pre-quarterfinal match, came in strong favourites and proved too hot for BEL Sports Club to handle, winning 55-40.

BEL, coming into the quarters following an easy rout of Bosch Sports Club, took a four-point lead (27-23) at the half-time buzzer with Rajashekar (13) and Prem Kumar (11) scoring the bulk of the points.

Naveen scored a match-high 21 points to help Blues crawl into the lead, while Ananda contributed 11 to carry the Blues through to a comfortable 15-point win.

Results, quarterfinals: Southern Blues: 55 (Naveen 21, Ananda 11) bt BEL Sports Club: 40 (Rajashekar 13, Prem Kumar 11). HT: 23-27. SAI, Dharwad: 60 (Mayur Bhat 10, Abhishek 10) bt Vimanapura Sports Club: 46 (Arun Kumar 13). HT: 27-24. VBC, Mandya: 44 (Anil Kumar 14, Aravind 13) bt Pattabhiram Basketball Club: 30 (Abhay 10). HT: 27-18. NGV Sports Club: 34 (Hardeep 14) bt Falcons Basketball Club: 22 (Syed 9). HT: 28-8
Pre-quarterfinals: SAI, Dharwad: 69 (Mayur Bhat 17, Abhishek 16, Rajesh 13) bt BSNL: 55 (Naresh 27, Yasin 14). HT: 35-26. Southern Blues: 66 (Shylu 17) bt Devanga SU: 34 (Nitin 11). HT: 37-16. Pattabhiram SC: 53 (Abhilash 16, Sharath 11) bt Beagles BC: 43 (Irfan 17, Shashank 16). HT: 26-20. BEL SC: 41 (Rajashekar 8) bt Bosch SC: 24 (Mahesh 9). HT: 18-5. Vimanapura SC: 45 (Arun 13) bt IBBC: 37 (Abhilash 13, Naveen 11). HT: 19-15. VBC, Mandya: 55 (Aravind 19, Anil 14) bt DRDO: 30 (Srinidhi 5). HT: 26-17.