New Indian Model School, Sharjah, Pristine enter semis

Indian School, Ras Al Khaimah drive into New Indian Model School, Sharjah territory.

 The New Indian Model School, Sharjah (NIMS-S) campus was busy again with its basketball activities as the 26th chapter of their inter-school championships entered the semifinal stage.
Hosts NIMS-S 'A' defeated Indian School, Ras Al Khaimah (Indian School-RAK) 40-21, to reach the semis. As usual, the G. Vijaykumar-coached lads led by Mohammed Nufais (14), and Rahul Raju's 11 points, were better drilled and had strong fundamentals in their approach work. For Indian School-RAK, Nitish Kumar registered 10 points.
"Every year all institutions have replacement issues when the seniors, especially the more talented and skilled ones, pass out. However, if talent is groomed systematically from the eighth grade onwards, replacing the top players will become a gradual process. One such method is to field 'B' sides like we do every year and have maybe running time matches of 10 minutes to encourage them," said Vijaykumar, one of the pioneers who introduced the sport at the school level in the UAE two decades ago.
Pristine Private School, Dubai defeated DPS-Sharjah 52-40 in another quarterfinal. Damiru top scored with 22 points and Ramon netted 15 points for the winners as Zianuddin (17) and Giri Sanjay (16) fought hard for DPS-Sharjah.
Also entering the last four stage were Our Own English High School, Sharjah, who defeated NIMS-Dubai 64-33, and DPS-Dubai, who defeated NIMS-S (B) 21-10 in a 10-minute running time fixture.
Earlier in the pre-quarters stage, NIMS-S 'A' defeated JSS Private School, Dubai 66-20; Pristine Private School downed Sharjah Indian School 43-25; Indian School-RAK cruised past Central School-Dubai 59-17; NIMS-S (B) outpaced Indian Excellent-Sharjah 28-15; NIMS-Dubai beat Millennium School-Dubai 51-26; DPS-Sharjah defeated Oxford School-Dubai 43-23; and Our Own English High School-Sharjah outplayed Emirates National School-Sharjah 51-16.
moni@khaleejtimes.com