Hambantota Sports Club (HSC) Blues took their revenge when they beat arch rivals Colombo Basketball Club (Colombo BC) 74-57 after leading 26-22 midway in the Colombo Super League Men’s ‘A’ Division Basketball Championship final played at the Sugathadasa Stadium last Sunday.
HSC Blues were steady from the beginning and posted a five-point lead in the low-scoring first quarter (9-4).
The second quarter saw a point-to-point battle as Colombo BC made inroads into Blues half. Even though HSC Blues were fourpoints ahead at half time (26-22), Colombo scored 18 points while restricting Blues to 17 in the second quarter.
Colombo BC bounced back strongly in the beginning of the third quarter, thanks to somebad passes and poor teamwork from their rivals and snatched the lead with Charith Madhushanka sinking a three-pointer from left to equal the scores at28-all. Even though the Colombo lads maintained a slight lead for some time HSC Blues regained their control towards the latter part of the penultimate quarter scoring 52-44.
HSC Blues widened the lead comfortably to seal victory scoring 22 points while restricting their opponents to 13 points in the final quarter. The same twoteams fought it out in 2015 in men’s Division ‘A’ final and Colombo won the title by one point. There were no Club ‘A’ Division tournaments in Sri Lanka for two years.
HSCBlues banked heavily on Clinton Stallone who scored 23 points and he bagged the Most Valuable Player award. Dynamic Mithila Abeysekara contributed 11 points while the most senior player Randima Sooriyaarachchi had a fantastic game.Sudesh Ahamed (17 points) and Charith Perera (10 points) were the top scorers for Colombo BC.
Blueswere led by Thimothy Nithushan and it was a perfect team work by them.
HSC Blues defeated Air Force 87-74 and Colombo BC beat HSC Blacks 64-57 in the semis amid some controversy.