Sports Authority of India, Delhi today registered contrasting victories after beating Bihar and Puducherry, respectively in the 4th Sub Junior National Hockey Championship, which commenced today at Vadodara.
While SAI beat Bihar 2-1, Delhi outplayed Puducherry 8-2 on day one of the championship.
In a Pool A match between SAI vs Bihar, it was Bihar which scored the first goal in the 18th minute with Samir Minz netting a field goal to give the team a lead.
Bihar, in fact, did well to maintain their lead all through the first half and almost through the second half too, before SAI finally scored the equaliser in 66th minute through a penalty corner that came from the stick of Vishal Sharma.
This made Bihar desperate and they tried hard to make a comeback, but SAI were fully motivated and they did not allow them to go through their defense again.
SAI scored the winning goal in the 70th minute, a brilliant field goal from Gurtej Singh.
In a Pool B tie, Kuldeep scored a hat-trick of goals, while Arun Kumar netted the ball twice to help Delhi thrash Puducherry 8-2. Other goal scorers for Delhi were Mohit Anand, Deepak Kumar, Vashu Dev.
Surjith scored two goals to reduce the margin for Puducherry.
In other matches of the day, Himachal Pradesh defeated Citizens Hockey XI 3-0, while Bengal Hockey Association blanked Goa 5-0 and Hockey Gujarat thrashed Tripura 12-1.
Results:
Pool A: Sports Authority of India 2 Vishal Sharma (66th min), Gurtej Singh (70th) vs Bihar 1 Samir Minz (18th).
Pool B: Delhi 8 Arun Kumar (18th, 62nd) Mohit Anand (43rd), Kuldeep (44th, 49th, 52nd), Deepak Kumar (59th), Vashu Dev (67th) vs Puducherry 2 Surjith (5th, 45th).
Pool B: Himachal Pradesh 3 Harish Kumar (16th, 63rd), Harsimran Singh (62nd) Vs Citizens Hockey XI 0.
Pool C: Bengal Hockey Association 5 Nitish Nevpani (25th, 54th), Rahul Dev Shaw (54th), Nadim Hossen (63rd, 66th) vs Goa 0.
Pool D: Gujarat 12 Amal Mathew (13th, 21st, 34th, 35th), Sarthak Parmar (27th, 48th, 59th, 70th), Virj Sisodiya (50th), Paumil (52nd, 63rd), Poonam Thakor (69th) vs Tripura 1 Danish (16th).
