Lalitpur, September 12

Golden Gate International College lifted the title of Ncell U-18 Inter-college Basketball Tournament defeating Liverpool International College 54-49 here at the Nepali Army Sports Complex today.

Golden Gate came from behind to beat Liverpool riding on Most Valuable Player Khukhen Lama’s 18 points. With the win, Golden Gate earned Rs 100,000, while Liverpool received Rs 75,000.

Aashish Basnet of Liverpool won the highest scorer’s award with 109 points six matches. Earlier, Morgan International College defeated Prime College 49-31 in the third place play-off match. Morgan received Rs 50,000.

In the championship match, Liverpool made a bright start winning the first quarter 17-6 to open up an 11-point advantage but they failed to keep the momentum going and failed the preserve the lead.

Lama played a key role netting eight points as Golden Gate bounced back in the second period with the score of 22-13 to cut the deficit to two points.

Golden Gate then took control of the match when they won the third quarter 17-6 for nine-point lead. Liverpool pushed hard in the final quarter and did win 13-9 but

the damage had already been done and they failed to avert the loss. Aashish Basnet netted 15 points for Liverpool.

Earlier, Morgan opened with a 8-3 lead and extended it to 18 point as they took the second period 17-4. Prime tried to come back into the game and scored 14 points in the third quarter but Morgan also netted 11. Morgan then took the final quarter 13-10 to register a convincing victory.

Denju Gurung scored 15 points for Morgan, while Nischal Maharjan netted 14 points for Prime.

A total of 16 teams participated in the 12-day tournament organised by Ncell under the auspices of Nepal Basketball Association.

NeBA President Lama Tendi Sherpa, Soma Thapa, Director, Strategic Channel at Ncell, Corporate Communication Expert Milan Sharma, and Maj Gupta Bahadur Kunwar handed over the prizes to the winners.