In the matches played at the covered hall of Dasharath Stadium, NASA edged past Golden Gate 89-77 to advance as Group B winner while White House crushed Xavier International College 64-37 to top Group A. [break]
American player Joel Debortli scored the highest 31 points for NASA. Debortli netted six crucial points for NASA in the fourth quarter with two three-pointers as it was ahead by only four points -- 62-58 -- at the end of the third quarter. "Joel´s brilliant performance was the key to the team´s success," said NASA skipper Binod Shrestha, who was full of praise for the American recruit. "We were in a difficult position in the early stages due to weak defense. But we improved the defense gradually and Joel gave his best in each quarter."
Despite the defeat, Golden Gate also made it to the semifinals as the group runner-up. NASA will meet Group A runner-up Gurukul in the semifinal on Tuesday while Golden Gate will lock horns with White House.
Despite going down 21-23 in the first quarter, NASA bounced back to take the remaining three quarters 24-19, 17-16, 27-19.
In the other match, Sarad Robertson contributed 23 points in White House´s comfortable win over Xavier. White House took the first quarter 21-5 to take a 16-point lead, but Xavier fought back in the second quarter netting 16 points against eight scored by White House. However, White House took the match under its control in the third and fourth quarters with the scores of 18-6, 17-10.
In the women´s category, Gurukul and Golden Gate made it to the semifinals. Gurukul thumped Saipal 41-28 to finish as Group A runner-up. White House is the group winner. Gurukul took a comfortable lead winning the first two quarters 12-6, 12-5 while the scores were tied at 7-7 and 10-10 respectively in the last two quarters. Prity Tulachan scored the highest 10 point for the winning team.
In another match, Golden Gate toiled hard to beat Prime 36-31 to top Group B while Prime advanced as the group runner-up. Bina Nakarmi netted 13 points for the winning side. Golden Gate took the first two quarters 11-9, 13-8 but lagged behind in the third quarter 5-10 before winning the last quarter 7-4.
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