Rourkela: The Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) felicitated its 12-member basketball team that won the Junior State Basketball Championship in Cuttack.

During an event at the company's sports unit office, general manager (town services) N.K. Samantray felicitated the team members and congratulated them on their performance. "This victory for our team is a matter of pride and I am hopeful that the team will continue to perform well in the future as well," said Samantray.

The team that won the championship organised by the Odisha Basketball Association included Aaditya Prakash, Ritesh Mahato, Satyajit Kujur and Manish Kujur from Delhi Public School, Johnson Minz, Anup Kujur, Aswin Panna, Ishan Chaterjee, Alex Horo from Saint Paul's School, Amrit Gaurav Ray and Jyotiraditya Bhoi from Ispat English Medium School, Sector- XX and Hritik Rohit Xess from Deepika English Medium School.

The team showed its strength throughout the competition with high scores in almost all the matches. The team beat the Khurda Basketball Association team 39-34 in the first match followed by a 42-12 win over Jagatsinghpur. The RSP team beat Bhadrak 92-78 in the semifinal match before trouncing Bhubaneswar Basketball Association 69-35 in the final to win the title.

Jyotiraditya Bhoi, a team-member, said: "We always got good support from RSP. And the coaching really did a world of good for us. There was no time to relax during practice and this time and pressure helped us do well."

Another team member, Johnson Minz, also hailed the the coaching. The team was coached by former player S.K. Dhar, who has represented Odisha on many occasions. "The boys delivered the way we expected," he said.