Bombay YMCA had lost to Bhanu Talim, Miraj yesterday and today's win revives their hopes in the four-team league. Fr. Agnel had won a thriller 64-61 last night to quell the challenge of Central YMCA.

The YMCA-Fr. Agnel match was a class act. Man-to-man both the teams were equally matched. And it was testimony of the teams' overall strength that four players from each team scored more than ten points.

Neither team could hold on to the lead for very long but when the final whistle ended the game, YMCA had a five-point cushion which helped them prevail.

If there was one factor that spelt Fr. Agnel's doom, it was their poor shooting in the second half. They had 51 shots but converted only 15 making it a poor conversion rate of 29.4 percent.

It was also the combination ofYMCA's 50 % shooting in the second half (42 shots, 21 converted) that tilted the balance in the winners favour in the final minutes.

And the guilty party for Fr. Agnel was their ball handler, Binoy KB who scored a game high 28 points but probably missed more shots. And that at a time when a little control and using the shot clock could have changed the course of the game.

The other factors were in Fr. Agnel's favour -- Fr. Agnel had 17 offensive rebounds with five of those converted to YMCA's two conversion from 14 rebounds. In this department, Fr. Agnel's Anup Nair and Dheeraj JM had a good game.

But if there is a humane look at the game, it was Suleman Patel's superior control of the game for YMCA in the second half and Amit Ansari's 23 points that made the difference.

With Bhanu Talim's loss to Central YMCA in the final match of the day, each of the four teams have won one match and lost one making it an interesting final day.

Results

Boys (semi-final league): Fr. Agnel Gymkhana 64(Binoy KB 18, Dheeraj JM 13, Avinash A 12, Anup Nair 10) bt Central YMCA 61 (Rajnikant Acharya 26, Aditya Vaid 19, Placid Fernandes 13); Bombay YMCA 77 (Amir Ansari 23, Shaikh Sharique 19, Suleman Patel 14, Anup d'Almeida 12) bt Fr. Agnel Gymkhana 72 (Binoy 28, Dheeraj 13, Maulik 16, Anup Nair 15); Central YMCA 74 (Aditya Vaid 19, Rajnikant Acharya 18, Devendra Ghumalla 18, Placid Fernandes 11) bt Bhanu Talim 55 (Anil Sankpal 18, S Patil 15, Mahesh Nagane 11).

Girls: Indian Gymkhana 35 (Krupa Temkar 15) bt Fr. Agnel Gymkhana 26 (Rakhee J 15).