After the barren first half, the trend continued even in the second session. There was, however, some goal-bearing attempts by the Nainital but their finishing lacked sting. With just few minutes left for the regulation play, skipper Pawan made most of a goalmount melee and struck the winnr for the Meerut school. Pawan, incidentally, was adjudged the best player of the tournament for his overall show. In the play-off for the third place, hosts Dayawati Modi Public School's (Modinagar) task was made easier as their opponents Army Public School from Noida failed to put up an appearance. Prof B.P. Khandelwal, chairman of CBSE gave away the prizes to winners and others.

Signals, IAF in final nAir Headquarters (Signals) and Indian Air Force will fight it out in the final of the Captains' Sports Club Basketball tournament tomorrow. In the semi-finals, played at the Kirori Mal College courts today, Signals defeated Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) 77-69 in a tough encounter and IAF downed Prthvi Nath Club 73-45. In the first game, IAF men combined and fought well to keep a tight leash on their opponents while CRPF also did their bit make it an interesting affair. But their defence proved to be their main problem as IAF exploited the gaps well to score at will. The IAF men maintained the trend for most part of the game and led comfortably. The Jora Singh was the star performer for IAF with 25 points while Jora the classy Sanjay Mohanty contributed 25 for the losers.

In the second semis, Prithvi Nath Club failed to match the guile of Signals hoopsters, who raced to a commanding lead by the half time. PN Club did try to stage comeback but could not press hard their resources and let their rivals run away with the match.

For the winners, Jaswinder Singh (20) and Anwar (15) were the main scorers while for PN Club, Shailesh (24) and Check (19) were the important contributors.

Vishal, Manish shines
Alpine Cricket Club (127 in 24.2 overs: Narender Gogna 31, Devender Bisht 24, Manish Chand Shah 4 for 19, Deepak Kanojia 3 for 13) lost to City Boys Cricket Academy (127 for 5 in 25 overs: Vishal Sharma 61, Shekhar Singh 32, Devender Bisht 2 for 33) by spin of coin after the teams had tied at the same total.