Seven of the 10 boys who started the final -- four from Jhunjhunwala, three from Somaiya -- belonged to one club, Ghatkopar YMCA. Their coach, MO Varghese, had parted ways with YMCA in May in not so pleasant circumstances. The boys from Somaiya had followed Varghese out in a spirit of loyalty to `Sir'. Those from Jhunjhunwala chose to stay back.

There were traces of animosity when the match started. The jeering at the end of the game from the Jhunjhunwala bench did not go down well, either.

All this, of course, does not sully the quality of the win. Jhunjhunwala had Somaiya by the jugular all the way through. They had a strong bench; in contrast, Somaiya's first five had two weak links. A height advantage and somepoor defence by Somaiya gave Jhunjhunwala a free ticket to the offensive boards, especially in the first half. Each attempt was followed by four others off the rebound. The 18 points from offensive rebounds could easily have been doubled.

Statistics throw light on Jhunjhunwala's balanced game. Outside shooting produced 28 points, including eight 3-pointers; 10 came off fast-breaks, 18 off drives, a breathtaking 180-spin by Prashant `PC' Sawant in the second half standing out. Prashant followed that with a fade-away, rousing his bench to scream ``Jordan, Jordan''.

The Somaiya offence did not click. Sachin More managed three points in the first two minutes and added four more at the close, after Jhunjhunwala had withdrawn their top five players. Brother Amit was as disappointing, scoring just one point in the second. Worse still, they failed to close ranks in defence. If they stayed in the match till the end of the first half, it was thanks to Nilesh Jadhav. But their hoped were quashed by Javed Shaikh, whohad fashioned Jhunjhunwala's title win last year. He had 21 second half points, and sparked off a 18-0 run, when Jhunjhunwala advanced from 39-29 to 57-29, climaxed by four successive fast breaks.

RESULTS

Men (final): Jhunjhunwala 77 (Javed Shaikh 27, Prashant Sawant 17, Manoj Choudhary 13, Ramesh Iyer 13) bt Somaiya 48 (Nilesh Jadhav 16, Pankaj Rane 12) HT 32-23; (Hardline): Xavier's 56 (Sylvan Desmond 13, Vinod Subramaniam 17) bt NM 33 (Ashutosh Ruia 13, S Rajdeep 10) HT 30-17.

Ruparel, Dayanand top

Ruparel and Maharshi Dayanand claimed the women's and men's titles, respectively, in the Inter-Collegiate kabaddi tournaments at University Pavilion today.

Ruparel crushed Dayanand 17-4 in the women's final, while Dayanand prevailed 24-18 over Patangrao Kadam in the men's summit clash.

In the hardlines ties, Kirti men beat Gogate (Ratnagiri) while Sathaye trounced Joshi Bedekar in the women's clash.

Thakur, Sathaye spikers win

Thakur men and Sathaye women clinched theinter-collegiate volleyball titles at Somaiya Vidyavihar yesterday. Thakur stayed unbeaten in the four team men's super league, overwhelming Sathaye 16-25, 25-23, 22-25, 25-19, 15-13 in the opener, and finishing with a clinical 25-17 25-15 25-20 demolition of Mithibai.

Sathaye women opened by drubbing Bhavan's 25-8, 25-9, and closed the top spot by downing Mulund Commerce 25-12 25-13.