Maharashtra outplay Chhattisgarh to avenge Fed Cup defeat

Mumbai: Maharashtra got back to winning ways and kept alive their hopes to qualifying for the women's final of the UPL-9th Savio Cup All-India Basketball Tournament, after beating Chattisgarh 77-66 in a league game here today.

Reigning men's champions Sportspower, USA, crashed to a 68-102 defeat to a resurgent Services in a Group-B round- robin match at the Don Bosco High School Court in Matunga. The Maharashtra eves, who had lost to Chhattisgarh by a solitary point (76-77) in the Federation Cup final last week at Ahmedabad, played aggressively and managed to avenge that defeat. There was also a marked improvement in their shooting and anticipation as compared to their opening encounter against Kerala, which they lost 71-81 a couple of days ago.

Maharashtra captain Manisha Dange led by example again, doing the bulk of scoring with 30 points. Playing supporting roles were Smruthi Radha (17 points) and Amrutha Bhuskute and Shireen Limaye, both chipping in with 10 points each. The heavily depleted US team, without several of their players who could not travel to India due to visa issues, lacked bench strength and were unable to raise the level of their game agains the pumped up Services and went down tamely.

Full credit should be given to the armymen, who after their defeat to Punjab in their earlier match, were a transformed lot and played aggressively to outsmart their opponents in every department. Ram Gopal and N K Grewal contributed 24 and 23 points respectively for Services and Joginder Singh scored 19. For the American side, Jahaziel Howared was at his best with 29 points and Reed Baker scored 16.