State women’s hockey: Back-to-back wins help Kolhapur enter semi-final

The experienced side beats Sangli 11-0 and overcomes Aurangabad 8-0 in one-sided clashes.

Pune: An experienced side capitalising on their coordinated passes made things easy for Kolhapur as they scored two wins in a day to enter the semi-final of the state senior women hockey championship at Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex on Thursday.

Players of Kolhapur and Sangli (red) in action during the state senior women’s hockey championship at Balewadi in Pune on Thursday.(HT PHOTO)

Kolhapur open their campaign with 11-0 win over Sangli followed by 8-0 win over Aurangabad. Pune, Nashik and Satara also entered the semi-finals.

The Kolhapur team with players like Aishwarya Chauhan, who has attended Indian camp four times (3 junior and 1 senior), began on an attacking mode after the first whistle.

Aishwarya scored the first goal in the first minute and Shivani Bhoite added one more in the ninth minute as the team completed the first quarter with 2-0.

Sangli forwards were unable to break the Kolhapur defence and score goals in the second quarter as well while the opponents added 3 to make it 5-0 at half time.

“We started playing two years back and facing a tough team like Kolhapur is always a challenge. Since the last few occasions that we are meeting Kolhapur in the first round of the tournaments, we are unable to advance,” said Asawari Adkar of Sangli.

Next two quarters were also dominated by Kolhapur as they added six more to set up 11-0 victory in the first match.

“Sangli team is new so we did not face any difficulty. We will get real challenge from Pune team and hope to face the home side in the final,” Aishwarya said.

Overpowering Aurangabad

Kolhapur team, back on turf in the afternoon session, continued their good form and defeated Aurangabad 8-0.

Shivani Bhoite (2nd, 7th) and Poonam Patil (5th, 51st) added brace, while Priyanka Patil (3rd), Aishwarya Chauhan (24th), Sanika Sanjog (53rd) and Shruti Patil (54th) added one goal respectively.

Results

Kolhapur 11 (Aishwarya Chauhan 1st, 53, Shivani Bhoite 9th, 18th, 38th, Poonam Patil 20th, 54th, Shruti Patil 25th, Poonam Gawde 35th, Tejaswini Kharade 58th, Pooja Patil 59th) bt Sangli 0

Kolhapur 8 (Shivani Bhoite 2nd, 7th, Poonam Patil 5th, 51st, Priyanka Patil 3rd, Aishwarya Chauhan 24th, Sanika Sanjog 53rd, Shruti Patil 54th) bt Aurangabad 0.

Satara 4 (Shruti Deshmukh 35th, Shreya Hande 45th, Shweta Sonkar 47th, 53rd) bt Nanded 0.

Nashik 4 (Yashree Gohad 2nd Nazia Khan 49th, 56th, 57th) bt Jalgaon 2 (Deepika Sonwane 23rd, Komal Sonwane59th)

Semi-final line up:

9am: Satara vs Nashik

10am: Pune vs Kolhapur