PSPB girls team lift youth crown
The top- seeded youth girls of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board lived up to their billing and beat hosts Airports Authority of India 3- 0 in their last league match to win the team title in the AAI 48th all India inter- institutional championships in Coimbatore on Thursday.
But the win did not come as easily as they had anticipated despite the score- line, thanks to some fine resistance from their rivals AAI, especially, first by Selena Selvakumar against Archana Kamath and then Moumita Dutta against Prapti Sen. In the end, Yashini Sivashankar settled the issue to put it across Surbhi Patwari to push AAI a spot behind.
Thus, PSPB girls have also qualified for the junior and youth nationals to be held later this year.
Archana had to bring in all her experience to beat Selena 11- 7, 9- 11, 6- 11, 11- 8, 11- 5 after trailing 12, while Prapti, down 0- 2, pulled herself up to beat Moumita 5- 11, 9- 11, 11- 8, 13- 11, 11- 9 and Yashini eased past Surbhi 11- 8, 12- 10, 116.
Earlier, their men and women teams were the first ones to enter the main draw with a lot of ease. Among the top groups, Petroleum ( Group A), Railways ( Group B) and Central Revenue ( Group D) men teams notched up two wins each to seal their places with clean slates, Reserve Bank of India in group C suffered a jolt when they were overpowered by Indian Audit 3- 2 to push them one rung below. Though the result cannot stop RBI from making the second stage grade, the setback will definitely work against them when the knockout begins.
In Group E, Airports Authority of India took the top spot with 31 wins over Canara Bank and Ministry of Communications & IT, while a walkover from Air Force helped them complete their group engagements. However, the match between Canara Bank and Ministry of Communications will decide who makes cut and who bows out. Both have two points each through walkovers from Air Force.