Kathmandu, January 25:

Rato Bangala School entered the women’s section final of the Trinity National Basketball Tournament with a 39-30 win over Orient College here today.

Sabina Shrestha top scored with 15 points Rato Bangala, who will face Under-19 national champions Prime Sports Club in Tuesday’s final. Prime had defeated Golden Gate Club in the Saturday’s semi-final.

Rato Bangala opened up a 9-2 lead and matched their score in the second quarter while Orient scored six points. Orient reduced the gap to seven points by the end of the third quarter after scoring 10 points restricting their opponents to seven. In the last quarter, the teams went neck-to-neck but Rato Bangala proved strong at the end when they added 14 points to that of 12 from Orient.

In men’s section, White House and Trinity made it to the semi-finals and will face each other on Monday. The other semi-final pits Golden Gate Club and Unique Group of Kirtipur on the same day. On Sunday, White House defeated Southsiders 65-49, while Trinity registered a 58-51 win over Times Club.

Manoj Sherchan of Southsiders top scored in the match with 20 points but failed to avert defeat at the hands of former champions. Nabin Shrestha of White House scored 17 points. White House dominated the first three quarters and managed open uo a 20-point lead after scoring 17, 21 and 18 points respectively. South Siders netted 10, 14 and 12 points. With victory almost there, White House concentrated on defending rather that attacking in the last quarter and could add just nine points, while Southsiders scored 13.

The match between Trinity and Times was so close that any team could have won in the last quarter. Trinity went five-point ahead after the first quarter (18-13), while Times reduced the margin to three points by the end of the second quarter which saw Times scoring 12 and Trinity netting 10. Trinity extended the margin to eight points after the break when they added 15 and Times manages 10.

Both the teams tried hard to go for basket in the last quarter as they equalled the first-quarter total of 31 points. Times’ 16 points were of no use as they could not outscore Trinity, who scored 15 for a total winning margin of seven points. Bikram Joshi top scored with 21 points for the winners.