LAHORE, Aug 16: Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Hazara qualified for the semifinal of the national division basketball championship Grade A at the Qayyum Stadium, Peshawar, according to a message received Friday.

Faisalabad despite a stunning defeat at the hands of lowly rated Hyderabad 66-64 made the last four on better position in previous matches.

For Hyderabad, Asif Raza with 32 points was the main scorer followed by Iftikhar who added 15 points. For Faisalabad Naveed and Shoaib fought well with 18 and 16 points, respectively.

Hazara upset Multan who were the runners up for the last three years.

Hazara’s 76-59 win was impressive with the major credit for the victory going to Aqeel who scored 28 points ably supported by Ikhtasam with 16 points.

For Multan Kamran and Shoaib made 20 and 14 points, respectively.

In another closely contested match, Rawalpindi came out as victors against Sargodha but with the difference of only one point 71-70. Azhar and Babar Shah with 20 and 14 points, respectively were the main scorers for the winners.

For the losers, Asad 22 and Mazhar 18 points did good efforts.

In the fourth match which had no bearing on the team standing, Lahore outclassed Peshawar 73-24. Asim 22 and Shahbaz 15 remained top scorers for the winning side. Awal Khan with 10 points gave some resistance to Lahore.