Group C clash between Royal College vs. St. Sebastian’s College ended in favour of the Reid Avenue lads when the final scoreboard read 80-34.
It was a struggled head to head confrontation to score the first couple of baskets to take the hold of the game though Royal College managed to grab the Jump-ball. Anselem made the way for the basket and in response from the home team Visal Pinto banged a three pointer to keep the Reid Avenue boys up for the game. Sebastian’s scoring was halted till the end of the first quarter after Shawn and Nimash added 2 points respectively while scoring only 6 points for the first period. Young Royalist Rukshan Attapattu drained couple of 3-pointers to give Royal their first lead of the game by 09 points (15-06).
When they returned to work off the second quarter Royalists accelerated their scoring rate while safeguarding the rim on a tight defense. They committed more personal fouls in this period proving their aggressive defense style. Sebastanites were tactical enough to draw fouls and trap Royal to a team foul trouble through which they managed to converts points from free-throws.
Though Sebastanites seemed comfortable in their roles, once more the forward and center duo Rukshan Attapattu and Gevindu Gunathilake fired up points in favor of the Royal team. Rukshan swished the nets off the baseline adding three more to the score.
Half time – Royal College – 34 St. Sebestian`s College – 15
Sebastian’s responded the Royal team with 1-3-1 defensive strategy, the main objective of a 1-3-1 formation is to make turnovers. Royalists showed a clean cut passing skills to aid the shooter workout play in their early quarters. This ended-up in Royalists attempting a few poor shots. Sebastanite Shawn controlled the ball under pressure from the diehard Royalists and continued to score 11 points at a stretch in the third quarter out of it 3 were successful free throw attempts.
Royalists’ center Mohamed Zahir unleashed his game to add up 5 fresh points while drawing a foul. He was unstoppable for a while and then from the other side of his play area, Royalist Rishitha Vedasinghe served an exciting piece of 3 point play for the team exuberate excitement. In between the play the Sebastian’s called for a time-out and came back with a man-to-man defense to slash the scoring of the opponent. But it was too late to tally the score. Gayeshan ended the 3rd quarter with a 3 point shot for Sebs. All the while the Royalists continued to build their lead, 55-29.
At the latter part of the game Sebastian’s were only able to score 6 points while the Royalists scored twenty five points. Sebastanites were only successful in the 3rd quarter going forward the team should sharpen up their team coordination and stamina levels.
Full time – Royal College – 80 St. Sebastians College – 34
