67th Maharashtra Senior State basketball tournament: Mumbai South East men and Mumbai North women take home top honours

• The tournament was hosted by Thane District Basketball Association and was played at the Fr. Agnel’s Multipurpose School grounds, Vashi.

• Thane district and Mumbai Central were runner ups in the men’s and women’s category respectively. Pune women and Mumbai Central men won bronze.

Champions! Women's category: Mumbai North; Men's category: Mumbai South East. Image credits: Mahrashtra State Basketball Association

30^th December 2016, Vashi: The 67^th Maharashtra Senior State Basketball Championship for men and women, though marred by controversy, did not fail to entertain the basketball fraternity and the casual fans assembled at the Fr. Agnel’s Multipurpose School grounds. The finals witnessed two high tempo games played between the women of Mumbai Central and Mumbai North and the men of Mumbai South East and Thane.

The battle for third place was between the women of Pune and Nagpur where Pune women comfortably beat Nagpur and beat them by a score of 71-47. The Mumbai Central men beat Pune men by 79-68 to secure their bronze medal.

Mumbai North women played Mumbai Central and beat them by a score of 50-41 to win their first ever gold at the senior women’s level. Sakshi Arora took home the ‘Best Player’ of the tournament award for her exceptional performance for her team since tip off on day one.

In the men’s category, the finals was a close contest between the host Thane and South East men with the latter edging out the former with a score of 73-69. The South East team took a page out of the Golden State Warriors’ playbook by fielding a line up similar to “The line up of Death”. The line up consisted of quick guards and was led by stellar performances of Karthik throughout the tournament. However, the 'Best Player' award went to Aaron Monterio – a local player, for his exceptional performances throughout the tournament that helped power Thane to the finals. His ball control skills left the onlookers in awe of his game.

The Maharashtra team for the upcoming Senior Nationals in Puducherry from  7th - 14th January, 2017 will be announced soon.

Best Player of the tournament! Men's category: Aaron Monteiro; Women's category: Sakshi Arora. Image credits: Maharashtra State Basketball Association

The results of the tournament are as follows:

Finals

Women Mumbai North 50 (Sakshi Arora 16, Vidya Vhangade 13, Anshika Kanojia 7) bt Mumbai Central 41 (Rachael Netto 16, Kimberly Fernandez 10); (15-3, 5-14, 15-17, 15-7)

Men Mumbai South East 73 (Aqib Wahab Khan 18, Kartik Counder 15) bt Thane 69 (Suraj Sujathan 15, Subham Yadav 14); (19-21, 13-16, 24-17, 17-15)

Third place

Women Pune 71 (Shireen Limaye 16, Rupali Tripathi 12) bt Nagpur 47 (Shreya Dandekar 25, Abha Lad 14); (24-9, 15-8, 12-6, 20-24)

Men Mumbai Central 77 (Saurabh Nishar 30) bt Pune 69 (Karthick S 21); (27-15, 13-21, 13-16, 25-17)

Semi Finals

Women Mumbai Central 66 (Bhavana Singh 15, Rachael Netto 12, Ranjeeta Kaur 10) bt Nagpur 59 (Shreya Dandekar 20, Abha Lad 19, Siddha Deshmukh 10); (11-13, 24-11, 16-19, 15-16) Mumbai North 58 (Sakshi Arora 17, Meena Shah 16, Vidya Vhangade 10) bt Pune 57 (Rupali Tripathi 15, Shireen Limaye 13); (14-13, 14-15, 16-17, 12-14)

Men Mumbai South East 79 (Amit Ghelot 23) bt Mumbai Central 64 (Sanket Kalbhor 24); (22-16, 24-21, 11-11, 22-16)

Thane 80 (Aaron Monteiro 25, Rohan Jagtap 16) bt Pune 71 (Nitin Chopde 19); (22-23, 22-12, 22-17, 14-19)

Quarter Finals

Women 1. Pune beat Dhule 72-18 2. Nagpur beat Satara 38 -24 3. Nagpur beat Osmanabad 43 -6 4.Mumbai Central beat Solapur 41-21

Men 1. Mumbai Central beat Mumbai South west 81- 72 2. Pune beat Beed 66 - 59 3. Thane beat Nagpur 78 -68 4. Mumbai South East beat Amravati 84 -79

All results courtesy: Mrs. Suvarna Vijay Limaye and Mr. Amit Sampat