Kathmandu, January 19:

Unique Group and Trinity Club advanced to the men’s section quarter-finals here at the Trinity National Basketball Championship today.

Unique defeated JB College 64-45 in Group ‘B’ while Trinity overwhelmed Sunsari 63-29 in Group ‘A’. In another Group ‘C’ match, Kaski crushed Nawalparasi 56-21.

The first two quarters turned out to be the decider in the match between Unique and JB College. Unique accumulated 15 and 21 while containing their opponents to just eight and nine points in the first two quarters. Although JB College lifted their game in the third quarter scoring 16 against 13 of the Unique, they were still trailing by 16 points going into the deciding quarter. Unique netted 15 and conceded only 12 in the last quarter to comfortably cruise through to the last eight. Rajiv Shakya top scored with 23 for the winners.

Trinity had even easier job against Susari as they opened up a 13-point lead by the half time. Trinity scored 11 and 19 while restricting Sunsari to seven and 10 in the first two quarters. Trinity were also consistent in the other two quarters accumulating 16 and 17 while giving away just 12 points during that period. Binod Maharjan contributed 10 for Trinity.

In another match, Kaski made a slow start but lifted their game as the match progressed. Kaski scored 9, 13, 14 and 20 in each of the four quarters while Nawalparasi only managed 7, 6, 4, 4 during that period. Yuvraj Pun top scored with 20 points for Kaski.