Pune boys could not score a single point in the last three minutes while Nagpur scored eight points (50-42). In fact, Pune was leading 42-40 but the tall guard Rajpal Singh scored the last six points for Nagpur for a well deserved victory.

Nagpur started very well with Anant Jadhav and Manoj Rakshak scoring at regular intervals. The match seemed to become a one-sided affair when Nagpur took the lead 27-14 at half time.

Later, Apoorva Sontakke and Girish Chopda found their rhythm and started scoring freely. Pune covered the deficit of 13 points and took a lead (42-40) but in the dying moments, the Nagpur boys played a controlled game to win.

In another interesting quarter-final match, hosts Solapur beat Ahmednagar (38-28). Both teams adopted defensive tactics from the beginning resulting in a low scoring match. Midway into the second half, Ahmednagar came close (24-26) but Daniel Kamble scored nine points in a row to take Solapur into the semi-finals.

Thane beat Mumbai South West and Sangli beat Mumbai North in the other quarter-finals.

In the late night pre-qarterfinal matches yesterday, Nagpur beat Satara and Sangli beat Nasik.

In the other matches yesterday, Pune girls defeated Kolhapur 48-14, with Amruta Rane and Khushboo Sancheti doing the bulk of the scoring for the winners. In the boys pre-quarterfinals, Mumbai South-West ended the campaign of Chandrapur beating while hosts Solapur beat Mumbai.

Earlie,, Chandrapur boys beat Yavatmal, scoring the winning basket in the dying minutes.