The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Shahabad team retains title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 17, 2004

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Shahabad team retains title

NEW DELHI, OCT. 16. Sri Guru Nanak Public Senior Secondary School (Shahabad, Haryana) retained the title in the Nehru junior girls hockey tournament, with a thumping 7-1 victory over Government Girls High School (Ranchi) at the Shivaji Stadium here on Saturday.

As the scoreline indicates, it was a lopsided final. Surprisingly so, for, Ranchi teams normally are tough as they come, especially at the junior level. But this team woke up all too late, after it had conceded four goals, and even after pulling one back it could not organise its defence to keep the damage to minimum levels.

Ritu Rani was the pick of the Haryana forwards. The small-built girl combined splendidly with captain Saravjeet Kaur to crack the Ranchi defence at will. Saravjeet's opening goal in the 11th minute was due to Ritu's brilliance. Ritu herself had a goal in the 25th minute, her team's third, striking from an angle on the left off a pass from Karamjeet Kaur.

Before that, full back Harjinder Kaur had converted a penalty corner. She converted one more, just seconds before half-time, when, barring the goalkeeper, all the Shahabad players went up to the rival `D', as though daring the Ranchi girls to counter-attack in case there was a miss. That did not happen, though. Late in the second half, Saravjeet converted another penalty corner to get her team's seventh goal, the third conversion off 17 penalty corners that the Shahabad team earned.

Aaarti Sharma provided the final touch to a Saravjeet-Ritu move in the 10th minute of the second half for Shahabad's fifth goal while Karamjeet scored the sixth eight minutes later, following a penalty corner.

A fine indirect variation, off a penalty corner, saw Anima Soreng scoring the only goal for the Ranchi team in the fifth minute of the second half. Birsamunda Vidyapitha (Rourkela) beat Government Girls SSS (Kairaon, Amritsar) 4-1 to take the third place. Roselin Dung Dung and Sarita Hanuman scored two goals each for the Orissa team while Sukhjit Kaur scored the lone goal for the Amritsar team.

The Amritsar team was adjudged the `most promising' team of the tournament. Kreeda Prabodhini Shiv Chattarpati Kreedapeeth, Pune, was awarded the fairplay trophy.