As usually the case, a St. Joseph’s – St. Benedict’s basketball encounter provides all the excitement a final should have and there was no difference this time when the two elite basketball playing schools met in the under-15 Colombo North Zone final at Kotahena yesterday.

As expected, the game was decided in the final few seconds which saw St. Benedict’s gaining a slender two point lead only to lose it with less than 25 seconds for the final whistle due to a marginal ball handling mistake and the Joes made their opponents to pay dearly for the mistake sealing victory.

The final score was 76-73.

Having defeated St. Joseph’s comfortably in a group match, St. Benedict’s came to the final as the title favorites, but St. Joseph’s avenged that defeat with a sensational effort.

St. Joseph’s were leading by one point at the end of the first quarter and extended the lead to 33-25 at half-time. The gap further widened to ten points at the end of the third quarter and in the final quarter, St. Joseph’s even extended the lead by 12 points before St. Benedict’s fought back admirably.

But they were left to do too much and despite all that, they still managed to take a six point lead at one stage only to give it all away as they cracked under pressure.

Captain and playmaker Brendon Keyser top scored with 18 points for St. Joseph’s and was named Best Player. Sachintha Udumalagala chipped in with 12 points.

Praveen Ganlath of St. Benedict’s scored 21 points despite ending in the losing side and was named Best Offensive Player. He was well supported by Pramod Weerasinghe who scored 17 points.

In the consolation final, meanwhile, D.S. Senanayake College, Colombo defeated Colombo International School 64 points to 51. D.S. led 27-20 at half-time.

The four schools progressed to the ‘A’ Division competition of the Under-15 basketball tournament schucled to start shortly.