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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Air Force (PAF) registered a 66-55 victory against Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Friday in the 50th Men's National Basketball Championship played at at Hamidi Hall, Pakistan Sports Complex.
In other matches, Punjab defeated Islamabad 54-47, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa beat Sindh 57-30 while FATA proved too good for Balochistan in its 53-4 win.
The experienced PAF were given a tough time by the young HEC team. HEC completely dominated the game in the first few minutes. The PAF got their act together in the last three minutes of the first quarter and were successful in taking a two-point lead (21-19) at the end of it.
The HEC boys put the PAF agaisnt under pressure in the second quarter with 17-10 and went to break with a five-point advantage.
After the break, the experienced PAF players tried to control the pace of match and forced the HEC to change their game-plan. PAF scored 35 points in the second half and restricted HEC to 19.
Prem Shahzad was the top-scorer for Pakistan Air Force with a contribution of 20 points while Tanveer Ali added 18. Aqib Javed was HEC's best player with 12 points while Mohammad Naveed scored eight and Uzair Ahmed seven.
Punjab rallied from a three-point first-half deficit to register a comfortable 54-47 victory against Islamabad.
Islamabad were the better team in the first two quarters as they led 32-29. Punjab fought back in the second quarter and in the fourth quarter they allowed Islamabad to score just four points.
Babar Shahid was the best player for Punjab with 18 points while Rehman Butt and Romis Julius added 13 and 11 points respectively. Rizwan Khurshid contributed 20 points for Islamabad while Wajeeh Raja chipped in with 11.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals with their second victory in two matches. They upset Navy in the first match of the tournament and continued the same momentum to outplay Sindh on Friday.
Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Atif were the main players for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with 14 and 12 points respectively. Tanzil Kafil (10) and Mohammad Azeem (7) were the leading performers for Sindh.
FATA simply steamrolled a hapless Balochistan 53-4. Waqas Ahmed (14) and Dilawar Khan (12) played well for Fata. Waqas Khan scored the four points for Balochistan.
