Odisha boys win National Junior Hockey on golden day for state

Odisha Sun Times Sports Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Apr 23:

It was a great day for Odisha hockey yesterday. While the Odisha junior team won the National Junior Hockey tournament by defeating traditional rival Punjab by 4-3 goals in a fiercely contested match, the senior team ‘Hockey Gangpur’ won the national senior male hockey competition in Pune.

Hockey Odisha brought it within a whisker of making it an incredible treble, but lost in the end after a spirited performance.

To cap it all, Nishanjyoti Mohanty of Odisha umpired in a couple of important matches in the tournament.

The match between Odisha and Punjab juniors was highly competitive from the very beginning. Punjab scored the first goal in the nineteenth minute. At one point, Odisha was trailing in 1-2.

However, Odisha’s Sumit Shrestha more than made up for it with a hat trick in the 27^th, 48^th and 61^st minute. The last goal for Odisha was scored by Gaprakash Barla in the 41^st minute.

After Prakash brought the match level in the 41^st minute, Sumit scored via penalty corner in the 48^th minute to take a lead in the match that it held on to till almost end of it. In the 61^st minute, Sumit scored his third and last goal turning the match to Odisha’s side by taking the goal tally to 4-2.

While Punjab managed to score one more goal, the match ended on a finally tally of 4-3 making Odisha the winner of the tournament. Punjab’s Harjit Singh, Simranjit Singh and Ajit Pandit managed to score goals in the match.

The Odisha team is being congratulated by one and all for this magnificent victory.