– Hockey Punjab edges past Hockey Jharkhand 3-2 in Final

– Hockey Odisha defeats Hockey Haryana 5-2, claims 3rd place

Ranchi, 31 May 2015: After a neck-to-neck tussle between the two best teams of the 5th Hockey India Sub-Junior Women National Championship 2015, Hockey Punjab outplayed Hockey Jharkhand by a narrow margin of 3-2 in the final match and clinched the title in Ranchi today. In the 3rd/4thPosition match, Hockey Odisha defeated Hockey Haryana by 5-2 and claimed the 3rd Position in the Hockey India National Championship.

In the Final match of the championship, Hockey Punjab edged past Hockey Jharkhand by 3-2 in a closely-fought match with the help of Amrinder Kaur’s brilliant brace. In the first few minutes, Hockey Jharkhand dominated the match and stunned their opponent with the first goal in the 8th minute. Albela Rani sneaked into the Hockey Punjab’s half and quickly sent the ball into the nets to take the early lead. After conceding the goal, Hockey Punjab girls gear-up and started playing very aggressive game. They continuously attacked on their opponent and kept the ball in their half. Amrinder led the charge and scored two back-to-back goals in 10th and 34th minutes, taking the lead by 2-1. In the 38th minute, Hockey Punjab earned a penalty stroke, which was perfectly converted by Gurleen Grewal and increased the lead by 3-1. After trailing by two goals, Hockey Jharkhand counter-attacked and created few opportunities. In the 54th minute, Hockey Jharkhand’s Albela struck back and scored her second goal to take the score-card to 2-3. In the last minutes, both the teams fought neck-to-neck but failed to add any goal and eventually the final match finished at 3-2 score-line in favour of Hockey Punjab.

Playing for the third position on the final day of the Championship, Hockey Odisha finished strong and made the most of the scoring opportunities against Hockey Haryana which helped them win the match by 5-2. Hockey Odisha held much of the possession in the first half and built the momentum until the prime opportunity arose. In the 31st minute of the game, Hockey Odisha’s Ashim Kanchan successfully took a shot at the goal-box, which gave them the much required lead over Hockey Haryana, resulting in half time scores to be 1-0 in their favour. The second half saw the same competitive spirit from Hockey Odisha as Elima Minz capitalised in the 40th minute, taking the lead to 2-0. Hockey Odisha, dominated the opponents and skilfully taking the lead to 4-0 in the 42nd and 47th minute. Hockey Haryana showed some resistance and Ankita Dhaiya found the nets in the 52nd minute which helped the team to open its score-sheet. 56th minute saw Hockey Haryana scoring yet another goal as Manju Chorsiya successfully cashed on the penalty corner opportunity. Undeterred by the consecutive goals by Hockey Haryana, Hockey Odisha in the 64th minute added the final dent which helped them win the match 5-2 and claim the 3rd position in the tournament.