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Hockey
Pondicherry surprises J & K
By Our Special Correspondent
KARIMNAGAR, DEC. 8. Pondicherry pulled off a surprise win over Jammu and Kashmir in the quarterfinals of the junior (under-18) National hockey championship here on Saturday. After the teams were locked at one-all Pondicherry got the golden goal in extra time which was scored by Harikrishnan.
In the semifinals to be played on Sunday, Pondicherry will clash with Punjab and Orissa will meet Punjab and Sind Bank.
Pondicherry which was the only team from the southern states to enter the knock out stage, has now gone a step further and entered the semifinals.
However, it was J and K which drew first blood in the 29th minute when Manjit Singh scored following a penalty corner. But Pondicherry came back strongly. It dominated the exchanges and held territorial supremacy for the major portion of the contest. However, despite all its efforts, Pondicherry went into the break still trailing by the solitary goal.
But after change of ends it did not have to wait long for the equaliser. This was scored by P.D. Ganesh in the 41st minute off a penalty corner. In all Pondichery forced six penalty corners as against four by Jammu and Kashmir.
Till the end of the full period the teams remained at one-all necessitating extra-time during which Pondicherry continued to dominate and forced three more penalty corners but the all-important goal came when Harikrishnan, after a fine move which
broke through the rival defence, put the ball into the goal to the delight of his teammates.
Pondichery coach Mr. Rajasekharan stated that most of the boys were from the SAI Hostel and had played together as a team for several years.
In another interesting contest Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) defeated Madhya Bharat 2-0 after a keen battle. Outside- left Pradeep Kumar gave PSB the lead off a penalty corner in the 29th minute and after change of ends Prabojit Singh made it 2-0 in the 38th minute.
The PSB team drawn from the PSB Academy in Jalandhar had several talented boys in its ranks and Harmeek Singh in particular caught the eye with his ability to put in a lot of hard work in midfield and initiated most of his team's moves.
In another match Punjab put an end to Haryana's hopes with a 4-1 win. Till this stage Haryana had not lost a match but today Punjab was the better side. Joga Singh (two), Yadwinder Singh and Sukhpal Singh scored for Punjab while Ashok scored the only goal for Haryana.
Orissa made it into the semifinals by beating SAIL 3-1 in the tie breaker after the teams failed to score in full-time and extra-time. In the penalty strokes, Jonreic Tete, Anthony Hembron and Powal Lakra scored for Orissa while for SAIL the only scorer was Sudhir Minz.
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