The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Andhra, Mumbai in quarterfinals

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Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

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Sport - Hockey

Andhra, Mumbai in quarterfinals

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM, FEB. 22. Andhra and Mumbai qualified for the quarterfinals of the second under-18 junior National hockey championship on Tuesday.

Andhra and Mumbai won their final league matches in their respective Group G and E at the KGRL College ground, Bhimavaram, to make the knockout stage with an all-win record. They will clash in the last eight match here on Feb. 25.

The qualifying race in the other groups to be played tomorrow is hotting up. The organisers declared Thursday as rest day.

Punjab, runner-up when the tournament was held last time four years ago, from Group H and Bhopal (Group A), which has not lost a match so far, are the only teams that look like making it to the next phase without much difficulty.

In Group B, J and K and Chattisgarh, with a win and a draw each, need to beat their respective rivals on Wednesday, that too with good margins as the Group winner is most likely to be decided on goal average.

SAIL and Karnataka scored big wins in Group C so far and the match between them is crucial. Orissa and Bihar have one win and one draw each in Group D. Bihar faces Uttaranchal, which lost both its two matches, and Orissa takes on Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Tamil Nadu, which gained full points from Haryana for its second win from as many matches in Group F, thanks to a penalty corner conversion by Kaushikan midway through the second half, need to beat Madhya Pradesh or at least force a draw to keep the latter out of race.

Haryana and Madhya Bharat, which lost to Andhra at Bhimavaram, were quarterfinalists last time but failed to make it this year.

Pondicherry, third last time, lost to Hyderabad in an inconsequential match in Group E at Bhimavaram.

The results: At Bhimavaram: Group E: Mumbai 4 (Navneet Swarankar 2 and Allwyn Alexander 2) bt Rajasthan 0. Hyderabad 2 (C.R. Suresh Singh 2) bt Pondicherry 1 (Faranath Raj). Group G: Andhra 2 (K. Suresh and K. Choudary Babu) bt Madhya Bharat 0.

At Visakhapatnam: Group B: J and K 1 (Omkar Singhh) bt UP 0. Group C: Karnataka 11 (K.K. Bharat 3, Bipin Bopaiah 2, Parameswara Rao 2, Subbaiah, Sarath Lakra, Binny and Chengappa) bt Tripura 0. Group D: Orissa 0 drew with Bihar 0. Group F: Tamil Nadu 1 (Kaushikan) bt Haryana 0. MP 3 (Abhisekh Shrivas, Lucky Razak and Ershad Khan) bt Gujarat 1. Group H: Punjab 3 (Sarvanjit Singh, Varinder Kumar and Praveen Kumar) bt Delhi 0. Bengal 6 (Gurdeep Singh 2, Gautam Chetri 2, Santosh Rajbhar 2) bt Vidarbha 3 (Md. Sariqui Islam 2, and Gurdeep Singh).

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