In a fierce and absorbing basketball battle, DFCC Group managed to hold off a determined second half rally, by the defending champions Sampath Bank, to emerge 77-76 victors in the men’s ‘A’ division final of the seventh Ram Ratnavale Memorial Mercantile Knockout tournament, held at the Otters basketball courts.
Anushkha Vishwanath of Sampath Bank drives to the basket.Pic by Ranjith Perera |
It was a riveting clash, which truthfully Sampath Bank were never in full control of, having to fight back from a deficit which at times swelled to over 10 points. In fairness to Sampath they were outplayed by a DFCC team that employed fluent fastbreak basketball to lethal effect taking a 41-30 lead in to the half.
However Sampath did have a chance to win the game in the final nine seconds through national captain Chamath Dhanawansa. Dhanawansa, who was chiefly responsible for Sampath’s comeback despite being largely forgettable for long spells of the game, cut to the basket and made a lay-up attempt as time ran down.
Unfortunately for the bankers, it missed the rim by a fair margin and DFCC had dethroned the mercantile basketball giants. However there was a fair degree of contact on Dhanawansa as he cut to the rim but in the crucial final moments of a significant final Samapath would have considered themselves extremely lucky if they had been awarded freethrows.
DFCC’s Faizal Mohammad was on fire from behind the three point line and racked up 20 points to take home the title of most outstanding player of the finals. He trailed DFCC captain, Gayan Meedeniya, who scored 23 points and tied teammate Malinda Fernando who scored 20.
For Sampath, Mithila Abeysekera was a monster under the basket, scoring a game high 25, while Virantha Bastian and Dhanawansa were the other high scorers with 12 and 11 points respectively.
The Most Outstanding Player of the tournament was DFCC’s tall and lanky, Chamath Serasinghe.
In the women’s ‘A’ division finals another tournament defending champion was dethroned when Hatton National Bank edged out Seylan Bank 51-48.
Sashikala Romanie, who won the MVP for the ‘A’ division, walked away with 14 points for the winners and was trailed by Kumarinee Silva who scored 12.
The leading scorers for Seylan were Premila Fernando with 12 and Inoka Sandamali with 14. |
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