Asom, Manipur in semis

GUWAHATI, Oct 22: Asom moved into the semi-finals of the 2nd Sahara north East Challenge Hockey Tournament thrashing Arunachal Pradesh by 9-0 in their last group league match held at the Md Toyabulla Hockey Stadium, Bhetapara here today. Manipur too earn the semi-finals berth beating Meghalaya by a huge margin of 13-1.

Asom, who won their first match yesterday against Tripura, played more better game today and pumped in six goals in the first half. The star of the day was Barna Bas who alone scored three goals in the 25th, 42nd minutes and 53rd minutes respectively.

Asom open its account on the six minutes of the game through Raman Kumar Singh. Ratul Ansari increased the margin within second minutes of the first goal. RK Anandjit Khamba Singh, L H Lunga and Manoj Das scored the other goals for home team.

Meanwhile the second match of the day, which was held in the afternoon, was totally an one sided affair as Manipur toyed with Meghalaya registered the second win in the championship. Manipur scored 13 goals in the match while Meghalaya just managed to return one.

With today’s win both Asom and Manipur moved into the semi-finals of the championship collecting six points from two matches. The next two semi-finalists would be decided tomorrow. It may be mentioned here that both the semi -finals would be held on October 24 while the final is slated for October 25.