Senior Women’s Inter-department Championship: Vandana, Sangita help Railways storm into semifinals

Sangita Kumari, recently crowned the rising star of the tournament at the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy, started the scoring as Railways beat Union Bank 5-1.

India’s most experienced hockey player Vandana Katariya (left), who won the Asian Champions Trophy recently, scored one of the five goals for Railways. | Photo Credit: PTI

Indian Oil Corporation and Railways expectedly remained unbeaten in their respective pools, winning their final league games on Saturday to advance into the semifinals of the 3rd Hockey India Senior Women inter-department championships at the Shivaji Stadium here.

While Railways registered an easy 5-1 victory against Union Bank to top Pool A, IOC overwhelmed Sashatra Seema Bal 8-0 for its third consecutive win in Pool B and set up a semifinal clash with Sports Authority of India. Railways will face SSB in the other semifinal.

IOC, boasting of a bulk of the national team players, had to wait till the 23rd minute for its first goal as SSB kept a tight defence and did not allow any space, clearing any attempts at the goal with goalkeeper Alpha Kerketta stepping up repeatedly.

Despite taking control, IOC was unable to find a way past. It took a deflection from captain Udita in IOC’s fourth penalty corner to break the deadlock before she added another and Baljeet Kaur got one to go 3-0 up at half time. Once the defence was breached, the second half was all about IOC as the girls stayed put in the SSB half and scored at will.

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In the morning, Railways had little trouble against Union Bank, dominating the play despite not exerting itself all the way. Sangita Kumari, recently crowned the rising star of the tournament at the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy, started the scoring in the 17th minute while Devika Sen scored two. Akansha Singh pulled one back for Union Bank in the 58th minute.

The other Pool A game saw SAI beat UCO Bank Academy 5-0 to finish second on the table and reach the last four. All India Police Sports Control Board finished its campaign on a high with a 10-0 win against Tamil Nadu Police to finish 3rd in Pool B, Sonal Tiwari scoring five goals for the winner, three of them within six minutes.

The results:

Pool A: RSPB 5 (Devika Sen 2, Vandana Katariya, Sangita Kumari, Shilpi Dabas) bt Union Bank 1 (Akansha Singh), SAI 5 (Kanchan Kerketta 2, Yogita Bora 2, Lalrindiki) bt UCO 0

Pool B: IOC 8 (Rajwinder Kaur 2, Baljeet Kaur 2, Udita 2, Pinki, Bhateri) bt SSB 0, SSB 2 (Maxima Ekka, Preeti) bt AIPSCB 10 (Sonal Tiwari 5, Pragya Mourya 2, Jyoti, Sushma Kumari, Yashika Negi) bt TNP 0.