The Hindu : Punjab colleges in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 20, 2003

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Punjab colleges in final

NEW DELHI FEB. 19. Rupinder Singh gloved out the fifth penalty stroke to give DAV College, Jalandhar, a 5-4 semifinal win against the defending champion, Faculty of Social Science, Jamia Millia Islamia Delhi, in the ONGC-Nehru Champion Colleges hockey tournament at the Shivaji Stadium here on Wednesday.

After the 70 minutes of regulation time failed to break the deadlock, tie-breaker was forced which seemed heading towards a sudden-death before Rupinder stretched and dived to push out a scoop by Prabhakar Singh.

DAV College, Jalandhar, meets Brijindra College, Faridkot, in the title clash here on Thursday. The Faridkot college won its semifinal also through the tie-breaker _ nonetheless this match witnessed a nasty brawl forcing the umpire to issue a red card, three yellow cards and a green card for the single incident.

Faridkot defeated St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, 4-3 after the two teams were locked 2-2 at the end of the regulation time.

Despite starting as the title favourite, Jamia boys left much to be desired. Theyhad three good chances of scoring, but the finishing was lackluster. In the 16th minute, Deepak Kumar raced from the left flank and sent a pass in the middle to Ramesh Mann. He dribbled past two defenders before he put the ball for Prabhakar Singh, who shot it wide.

DAV College was a bit defensive and mostly depended on earning penalty corners, but messed up all the chances. On changing the ends, Jalandhar college made a good move, in the 55th minute. Striker Damandeep Singh set up a good chance but he delayed in taking the final hit.

In the counter attack, Sanjeet Kumar of Jamia received the pass from the center and surged ahead. He had just the goal-keeper to beat but his reverse flick was a tad high.

In the tie-breaker, Navpreet Singh, Ranjit Singh, Damandeep Singh, Harmanpreet Singh and Gaganpreet Singh were the scorers for the Jalandhar college. For Jamia, Deepak Kumar, Jitender Saroha, Manish Sahi, and Ajitesh Roy netted. Prabhakar Singh, who took the fifth stroke, saw to his disbelief, Rupinder glove the ball out.

Earlier in the first semifinal between Faridkot College and Bangalore college, Buta Singh was red-carded for starting a brawl and injuring Varen Chinnappa. Besides the red card, umpire K. L. Azad gave yellow cards to Dilbagh Singh and goal-keeper Amber Singh of Brijindra College, and a yellow card to K. S. Appanna of St. Joseph's College.

When the game resumed, Chinnappa returned with heavily-bandaged head and the Bangalore college had an advantage of 10 players to eight players. And, in those seven minutes when Faridkot's regular custodian was out and were two players less, Bangalore managed to even the scores through Adarsh Ganapathy's penalty corner conversion.

The second half saw a fierce contest before Kulwinder Singh scored his second goal to put Faridkot 2-1 up. Ganapathy was again at the helm as he slammed the equaliser in the 65th minute. — Our Sports Reporter

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