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KARACHI: Defending champions Army, as expected, breezed past youthful Pakistan Ordinance Factories (POF) Wah 89-36 in yet another one-sided encounter to qualify for the National Departmental Basketball Championship final here at the Arambagh floodlit court on Friday.
The soldiers in Saturday’s title clash face Wapda who thrashed Navy 111-57 in the other semi-final that also fell short of expectations.
Meanwhile, Railways outplayed Police 66-33 in the morning to seize fifth place and avoid relegation in the event that featured six outfits.
The top five teams of the event will join top three teams of the National Divisional Championship in the combined national championship to be played next month.
On Thursday evening, Navy edged a fighting Police outfit 90-89 in the last match of the league that was decided in extra time to complete the last-four line-up.
Navy and Police were tied at 81-all in regulation time that was followed by five-minutes extra time to settle the issue. The match turned out to be the best of the event so far.
Taking advantage of their tall heights, holders Army were on a scoring spree right from the word go and maintained their pace throughout the match.
They won the first quarter 23-8 and the second 26-11 to lead 49-19 at half time. Maintaining their stranglehold, the soldiers won the third 19-7 and rounded off by winning the fourth 21-10.
Army’s tallest cager Tughlak Ammar and M. Atif turned out to be the principal scorers and ended up with 22 apiece. The latter’s scor also includes three three-pointers.
Rashid Minhas (13), Saghir (9) and Naimatullah (9) also contributed good scores in team’s winning total.
M. Usman turned out to be the only outstanding player for POF with a tally of 24 including three three-pointers but could not get enough support from other teammates.
According to POF’s coach and former Pakistan captain Ihsanullah Marwat, his team includes seven new faces besides four seniors. The new inductees include M. Farooq, Izharullah, Safiullah, Waqas, Aman Bhatti, Farrukh and Musab Mohammad.
Results:
First semi-final: Army bt POF Wah 89-36
Army: Tughlak Ammar 22, M. Atif 22, Rashid Minhas 13, Naimatullah 9, Saghir 9, M. Akram 4, Farhad Ahmed 3, Rehman Raja 3, M. Shahbaz 2, Asad Abbas 1, Saeed Anwar 1.
POF Wah: M. Usman 24, Safiullah 3, Raja Nadeem 3, M. Sajid 2, M. Farooq 2, Izharullah 2.
Saturday’s fixtures:
POF Wah v Navy (playoff for 3rd-4th position) at 4pm; Army v Wapda (final) at 6pm.
Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2017
