Chandigarh girls reach finals of National Sub Junior U15 Hockey

Bassi Pathana: September 20: In the two semi finals held at Bassi Pathana for the Sub Junior U15 National Girls Hockey Championship, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh qualified to contest for the Dr Thakar Singh Ikolaha Championship Trophy in the ITI grounds tomorrow.

In the first semifinal today, Himachal routed Haryana through a penalty shoot out. Both the teams were locked 1-1 till the final whistle. Himachal sounded the board thrice against one by the Haryana girls.

The credit for Himachal’s entry to finals goes to goalkeeper Sheetal who deftly warded off over dozen attacks from Haryana girls, who however had taken the lead in the 20^th minute through Kavita, but it was a shortlived glory as Kanishka from Himachal immediately restored parity.  Both the teams despite their efforts could not score the winning goal and had to break the tie through penalty shoot out.  For Himachal Priya, Nisha, and Shilpa scored the goals while Neha Sharma of Haryana could convert only one penalty stroke.  Himachal therefore entered the final with a score of 4-2.

In the second semi-final, Chandigarh girls had a comfortable win with 4-1 with Shilpa opening the account in the sixth minute itself.  Saroj sounded the board twice in the 8^th and the 27^th minute, while Poonam completed the tally through another goal.  For Mizoram, Lalluamwawis scored the lone goal.

For 3^rd and 4^th place, Haryana girls shall meet Mizoram at 9:30am in the morning while the finals between Chandigarh and Himachal would be played at 3pm in the presence of the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shri Parkash Singh Badal.