Sub-jr women national c’ship: Haryana, MP into semis

New Delhi: Defending Champions Haryana from Pool A and Madhya Pradesh from Pool B reserve their berth in the semi finals of 4th Hockey Sub-Junior Women National Championship (Division A), being played at Pune, Maharashtra.

In a Pool A match, yet again, Haryana emerged as winners and defeated Andhra Pradesh with a striking goal margin of 7-0. The fate of the match was decided in the first half of the match itself with 7 goals getting scored in that session and with the second session going goalless.

Starting from the very 4th minute of the game, Haryana went all out striking goals one after the other in the entire first half, without giving Andhra Pradesh any opportunities for scoring. The first goal of the match came from Ekta Kaushik through a penalty corner followed by Bharti Saroha who scored goal in the 7th minute. It was again through the penalty corners that Jyoti and Ekta pierced individual goals in 9th and 13th minute, respectively.

Making no mistake Haryana’s Mahima in the 18th minute and Jyoti in the 22nd minute hit two goals advancing the lead to 6-0. The last goal of the match came through the stick of Manju in the 35th minute helping Haryana to take their winning total to 7-0.

In a Pool B match, Karnataka went down fighting to Madhya Pradesh with a score of 3-0 on board. Madhya Pradesh played competitively and did not allow the opponents to score even a single goal throughout the match. The first goal of the match came as early as in the 7th minute of the match through the stick of Suman Thoudam Devi. Soon in the very next minute, Preeti Dubey hit the ball on the net closing the first half of the game giving a lead to 2-0.
In the second half of the game, Preeti Dubey turned out to be the driving force for her team as she took full advantage and notched the last goal of the match in the last minute of the game taking the lead further to 3-0, giving Madhya Pradesh the victory.

In another well contested match of Pool A, Rajasthan registered their first win with a score of 4-3 over Kerala. Captain Raju Ranwa of Rajasthan did full justice to her team and proved her captaincy by contributing all the four goals for her team singlehandedly.

The first half of the game saw three back to back field goals by Raju Ranwa for Rajasthan coming in the 7th, 9th and 10th minute. Just before the first half was about to close, Kerala’s Arya K.M opened the team’s account with a field goal in the 24th minute leaving the score card with of 3-1 by the end of the first half. Kerala dominated the second half of the game and it was Arya K.M who stroked in all the goals by successfully converting a penalty corner in 47th minute and a field goal in 51st minute levelling the scores to 3-3.

As the match turned out to be very crucial, in the last minute of the game, Rajasthan’s Raju Ranwa stroked in a goal making full use of the penalty corner opportunity, failing the opponents’ efforts and advanced the lead to a 4-3 win.

In a Pool C match, played between Hockey Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, a total of 4 goals was scored in the entire game and which ended in a draw with 2-2 on the scoecard. Both the teams had a neck to neck fight where, the opening goal came from Uttar Pradesh’s Sonal Tiwari in the first half, who successfully converted a penalty corner in the 16th minute. Hereon, the entire first half of the game went sluggish for both the sides as none of the two teams could manage to add any goals to their account and the session ended with 1-0 and with Uttar Pradesh leading. However, the teams were back in action in the second half when Shahana Shaikh notched a goal in the 40th minute for Hockey Maharashtra levelling the score to 1-1.

The pressure did not take a charge on Uttar Pradesh when Sonal Tiwari again contributed to its team with a goal in the 46th minute taking the lead to 2-1 which was soon answered by Shradha Tiwari in the 52nd minute knotting the score to 2-2 and with the match ending in a draw.

In another Pool B match, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu concluded the game in a draw with a levelled score of 1-1. Striking the first goal of the match was a tough row to hoe for the both the teams as the first 20 minutes of the game saw numerous efforts to put the ball in the net from both the sides. The scoreboard showed 1-0 only after Geetanjali Sahu of Chhattisgarh scored the foremost goal of the match in the 24th minute.

It was soon followed by the first goal from Tamil Nadu when Gayathiri stroked a field goal in the 29th minute of the game. The players from both the teams attempted to strike the match winning goals all the way through the entire second half but could not thrive. The match ended with an equal score of 1-1 on the board indicative of a draw.


Results of the day-

Pool A: Hockey Haryana 7 Ekta Kaushik (4 and 13 min), Bharti Saroha (7 min), Jyoti (9 and 22 min), Mahima (18 min) and manju Chourasia (35 min) Vs Hockey Andhra Pradesh 0

Pool B: Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy 3 Suman Thoudam Devi (7 min), Preeti Dubey (8 and 70 min) Vs Hockey Karnataka 0

Pool A: Hockey Rajasthan 4 Raju Ranwa (7, 9, 10 and 69 min) Vs Hockey Kerala 3 Arya K.M (24, 47 and 51 min)

Pool C: Hockey Maharashtra 2 Shahana Shaikh (40 min), Shradha Tiwari (52 min) Vs Uttar Pradesh Hockey 2 Sonal Tiwari (16 and 46 min)
Pool B - Chattisgarh Hockey 1 Geetanjali Sahu (24 min) Vs Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu 1 Gayathiri (29 min).