Punjab beat Odisha to retain Junior Men National hockey title

Chennai: Punjab closed the championship in style, as they stunned Hockey Odisha 6-2 in the finals of the 4th Hockey India Junior Men National Championship 2014 (Division A), played today in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and retained the championship title.

In an exciting finals of the 4th Hockey India Junior Men National Championship (Division A), the defending champions Punjab held Hockey Odisha back on their feet as the penetrated a total of six goals to bag the championship title for the second time and let Hockey Odisha keep a mere two goals in their account.
Punjab started with their dominance from the very 1st minute of the game when Harjeet Singh made no mistake in converting the penalty corner, shortly followed by two field goals in the 9th and the 14th minute coming through Simranjeet Singh and Baljinder Singh, respectively. Hockey Odisha in return managed to penetrate a field goal in the 30th minute with the help of Sunil Ekka to open the account and reducing the score to 3-1 by the end of the first half.
The second half of the match also saw a similar result as Punjab penetrated three more goals with the help of Parvinder Singh, Ajit Pandit and Simranjeet Singh in the 57th, 59th and 67th minute respectively, whereas, Hockey Odisha managed only one more goal in the 44th minute through Joseph Toppo, to lock the finals scores at 6-2. A much elated team Punjab now stands with two consecutive title wins of the championship.

Playing for the third position, Haryana defeated Sports Authority of India 7-3. It was Sports Authority of India who started the game with great momentum and opened the score card in the 17th minute when the team got a penalty corner and which was successfully converted by Ajit Kumar Pandey. The team increased its lead over Haryana in the 26th minute when Navdeep Singh scored through another penalty corner taking them to a 2 goal lead.
By this time Sports Authority of India was in complete control giving Haryana no chance to score. Just before the end of the first session, Haryana finally scored in the 31st minute when Mandeep More scored the penalty corner that the team bagged. Going into the break Sports Authority of India was leading the game 2-1.

In the second half while everyone was expecting Sports Authority of India to continue their dominance, Haryana had some other plans in store. While Sports Authority of India immediately scored in the second half and with their 3rd goal coming in the 38th minute through Pawan Rajbhar’s stick. From here Hrayana turned the tables and went on a complete attack hereon. They scored their 2nd goal in the 44th minute which was a field goal by Mandeep More. In the 47th minute it was Sahil Debas who scored the 3rd goal, helping the team to level the scores on the score board. From here it was anyone’s game and Haryana did the scoring and added another 4 goals making Mandeep More the top scorer and helped the team claim the win and the third position in the tournament.