The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Karnataka regains title after ten years

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Sunday, Dec 31, 2006
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Sport - Hockey

Karnataka regains title after ten years

Principal Correspondent

DETERMINED BUNCH: Karnataka, which regained the South Zone senior men's hockey championship.

THALASSERY: On the eve of the 19th South Zone senior men's hockey championship, Karnataka's coach G. Parimalakumar was talking about how badly his team needed to win the title. "We want to win this tournament and we know we can do it," he had said.

His boys proved him right at the Municipal Stadium here on Saturday, beating Andhra 1-0 in the final.

The last time Karnakata had won this event was ten years ago. Laxman Rao, who was part of that team, scored the winner on Saturday.

Nice feeling

And he must have felt especially nice, as his wife Helen Mary, who has kept the goal for the Indian women's hockey team for many years, was at the venue, along with Indian coach V. Bhaskaran and Indian Hockey Federation secretary-general K. Jyothikumaran.

This wasn't Karnataka's best performance in the tournament; it couldn't quite take control of the match the way it did against Hyderabad in the semifinal on Friday.

Good start

The team began well enough in the final though, showing a lot of urgency and putting the Andhra defence under pressure. Karnataka took the lead pretty early too, in the eighth minute, when Laxman made no mistake after receiving a fine pass from Sandeep Michael, following a free hit taken by Ravi Kumar.

Andhra, which had shocked the defending champion Tamil Nadu in the semifinal, failed to reproduce the kind of spirit it showed on Friday. It did press hard for a goal in the second half and even earned four penalty corners in the last ten minutes, but it was Karnataka's day.

"I am not entirely happy with our performance in the final," admitted the Karnataka coach. "I guess the boys were a bit nervous. This title means a lot to us, you know. We are winning it after such a long gap."

TN third

Earlier, Tamil Nadu took the third place after beating Hyderabad 6-5 in the sudden death. The teams were locked at 1-1at the end of the regulation time. Adam Sinclair had put Tamil Nadu ahead in the 24th minute, before M.A. Aleem found the equaliser for Hyderabad, from a penalty corner.

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