Ladowali, Chandigarh boys in final
Government Senior Secondary School, Ladowali, set up a summit clash with Chandigarh’s Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 37-B, after scoring contrasting wins in the semi-finals of the Commander G. Nandy Singh-46th Nehru junior boys hockey tournament at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in the capital on Thursday.
The Ladowali boys pipped Mohali’s Saint Soldier Senior Secondary School 5-4 in a shootout after tying 3-3 in regulation time while the Chandigarh outfit rode on Harpreet Singh’s hat-trick to ease past Directorate NCC Red (Odisha) 5-2 in the last four encounter.
In the first semi-final, Simranjot Singh (11th) opened the scoring for the Ladowali team before Prateek Sharma (20th) equalised. Player of the match Sudarshan Singh snatched the lead in the 27th minute as the Ladowali boys went into half time with 2-1 advantage.
After the break Sudarshan (43rd) was again on target but the Mohali team upped their game and pumped in two consecutive goals to take the match to the shoot-out as Angadbeer Singh (50th) and Sohaib Akhtar (55th) sounded the boards for Saint Soldier School.
In the shoot-out, Ajaypal Singh and Jaspreet Singh converted while Raman Kumar and Sudarshan Singh missed for Ladowali. Vishaljit Singh’s was the lone conversion for Mohali while Navpreet Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Aman Thakur and Rahul missed.
Later, NCC were first to draw blood in the 16th minute and went 2-0 up but the Chandigarh outfit soon tightened the noose. Harpreet (45th), Rahul (63rd) and Arshdeep (64th) netted once each to give their side the lead before Harpreet pumped in two more goals within four minutes to steer the team home.