Chennai, Apr 9 (PTI) Defending champion Punjab runs into host Tamil Nadu in the men's final of 71st Senior National Basketball Championship here after posting comfortable wins in the semifinals on Saturday.

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While Punjab eliminated Karnataka 88-75, Tamil Nadu got the better of the formidable Indian Railways 93-70 with H Muin Bek leading the way with 26 points.

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In the women's section, Railways will clash with Telangana for the title.

In the men's semifinals, Tamil Nadu was in control from the start and led right through the match against Railways. At half-time, the home team was ahead 51-33 and kept the momentum going. Muin Bek was the influential player as is most often the case, with 26 points.

Meanwhile, Punjab too did not have any problems in seeing off Karnataka and kept scoring regularly to book a spot in the summit clash.

The women's semifinal saw a dominant Railways register a 115-88 win over Tamil Nadu while Telangana edged out Kerala 81-78 in a close encounter.

RESULTS

Men's Semifinals: Punjab 88 (Kanwar G Singh Sandhu 26, Amritpal Singh 22) beat Karnataka 75 (Abhishek Gowda 22, Harissh M Kumar 18).

Tamil Nadu 93 (Muin Bek 26, A Aravind 15, M Jeevanantham 15) beat Railways 70 (Praveen Kumar 24, Palpreet Singh 13).

Women's Semifinals: Telangana 81 (Priyanka P 33, Aswathy Thampi 20) beat Kerala 78 (Sreekala R 27, Kavitha Jose 22).

Indian Railways 115 (S Pushpa 24, Avanthi Vardhan 16) beat Tamil Nadu 88 (K Sathya 30, Amritha 14).

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)