Holders Kerala beat Rajasthan in National Volleyball

Moradabad, Dec 22 (IANS) Defending champions Kerala proved too strong for Rajasthan winning their tie 3-0 in the National Volleyball Championship here Sunday.

In the first set, Rajasthan gave a tough fight to Kerala and went neck-and-neck but in the end Kiran Philip came up with sensational attack followed by a block off Vipin George, turning the set in favour of Kerala.

In the next two sets, Philip and Tom Joseph got into action and registered a comfortable win (25-22, 25-14, 25-14).

Later, Delhi registered their first win by thrashing Jharkhand 3-0. Nipun Dagar and Shekar attacked furiously whereas P. Kanan did exceptional work in blocking and finished 25-21, 25-21, 25-18.

Pondicherry completely outplayed Jammu and Kashmir 3-0 (25-20, 25-18, 25-22) while Andhra Pradesh also thrashed Madhya Pradesh by a similar margin (25-15, 25-12, 25-21).

In women’s team action, Railways cruised to a 3-0 victory over Haryana. The first set was complete attack-and-block fest by Minimol and Priyanka Bohra. The story remained the same in the second set but this time Terin came into action and left no scope for Haryana while in the third set Priyanka and Nishya dominated at the net to win 25-18, 25-12, 25-13.

Later Jharkhand beat Madhya Pradesh 3-0 (25-12, 26-24, 25-14), Karnataka overpowered Maharastra 3-0 (25-18, 25-11, 25-15), Chhattisgarh thrashed Bihar 3-0 (25-10, 25-12, 25-07) while Chandigarh drubbed Odisha 3-0 (25-16, 25-16, 25-19).