BANGKOK: The junior Indian men and women’s hockey teams continued their good form at the Youth Olympic Games Qualifiers here today.
The Junior women’s team crushed South Korea 10-0 while the men’s side beat Japan 6-2.
In their second Pool B match, the junior women’s team scored as early as in the first minute via Lalremisiami. The lead was doubled in the fourth minute as Lalremsiami again found the back of the net.
Sangita Kumari, who scored six goals in the match yesterday against Singapore, scored her first in the 10th minute. That ended the first period in India’s favour at 3-0.
The Indian team continued to attack scoring four goals in the second period via Mumtaz Khan (11′, 12′), Sangeeta Kumari (14′) and Deepika (19′).
South Korea had no answer to India’s consistent goal-scoring abilities as three more goals were scored in the final period, two by Sangita Kumari (29′, 29′) and one by Lalremsiami (21′) for the final scoreline to read 10-0. This win put India on top of Pool B with six points.
Meanwhile, the men’s team got the better of Japan 6-2 in their second fixture of the event.
Both teams started cautiously giving away nothing initially. It was Indian skipper Vivek Sagar Prasad who broke the deadlock in the third minute to give India the lead. In the eighth minute, the Indian team put additional pressure scoring two goals in no time via Rabichandra Moirangthem and Rahul Kumar Rajbhar.
A minute later Maninder Singh added to the tally making it 4-0 at the end of 1st period.
Rahul Kumar Rajbhar scored his second in the 12th minute with Vivek Sagar Prasad adding another a minute later. Japan got one back in the 15th minute via Kazumasa Matsumoto for the second period to end at 6-1.
The third period didn’t see too many goals coming until Japan scored in the last minute, but that wasn’t enough as the match ended in favour of India at 6-2 taking them to top of Pool A with six points.
The junior men’s team will take on Hong Kong China and South Korea in their third and fourth pool games on Friday while the women’s side will take on Thailand.
The five-day tournament is a qualifying event for Youth Olympic Games 2018 to be held at Buenos Aires, which will follow the futuristic Hockey 5’s format. (AGENCIES)
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