In an exciting encounter, the Pune Peshwas beat the Mumbai Challengers 101-97 in the UBA Pro Basketball League Season-3 at the Balewadi Sports Complex on Monday.
For his overall performance. which included 28 points, Siddhanth Shinde was awarded the man of the match for Pune. Good support from your fans will always boost the players confidence no matter what and Pune started off well in the beginning of the first quarter, as Ajinkiya Mane (7pts) kept Mumbai on their back foot.
Pune although were lagging behind, the Peshwas mostly banked on their three-pointers. While Pune were chasing to level the score, Mumbai’s Dildar (7pts) and Ranbir (8pts) did most of the damage as they led the first quarter by 26-23.
The Peshwas gathered their confidence in the second quarter, courtesy the amazing support by their fans. It was Narendar Grewal who helped Pune take a substantial lead in the start of the second quarter. A total of 11 points in the second quarter by Narendar got Pune in the driver’s seat and the Peshwas took a lead at the end of the second quarter by 55-52.
Pune were in full swing in the third quarter giving few chances for Mumbai to take over. Called in for a foul of Ajrun Mehta, Karna made most while the sun shined. While he boosted the moral of the team, Karna did some serious damage to Mumbai as he scored 8 valuable points in the third quarter. Mumbai looked like they were taking a lead, but Pune put their best guard forward. Having put a good show in the third quarter, Pune were still leading by 80-72.
Pune played their defence card in the fourth quarter and hardly gave a chance to their opponents. The Peshwas were in total attack mode too. There was a time, when Pune were leading by almost 15 points.
Mumbai were trying their best to overcome Pune’s defence and were looking successful for a while. However, Pune held on and beat Mumbai by four points in the end.
Happy with the team’s performance, an elated Ram Kumar said, “I am really with the way the team performed. The Mumbai team were marking us well, but we did our best.” The coach highly appreciated the crowd support, he said, “The support for electrifying. The team banked on the fans support. We hope that the city supports us ahead in the same way.”
Result: Pune Peshwas (Narendra Grewal 36pts, Siddhanth Shinde 28pts) bt Mumbai Challengers (Gagandeep 20pts, Dildar 20pts) (23-26, 55-52, 80-72, 101-97)
