Tamil Nadu seal quarterfinal berth at Senior Men Nationals

Imphal, Jan 13 (PTI) Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu notched up a dominating 4-1 win over Manipur Hockey to book their place in the quarterfinal on the seventh day of the 8th Hockey India Senior Men National Championship here today.

H Hariharan (23rd minute), S Silverstalin (25th), G Saravanakumar (50th) and S Niranjan Sai Ganesh (57th) were the goal-scorer for Tamil Nadu, while Manipur Hockey could only score once in the 55th minute through Ibungo Singh Konjengbam.

With this win, Tamil Nadu topped their Pool D with a tally of 7 points.

In another match, Sports Authority of Gujarat - Hockey Academy thrashed Hockey Gujarat 16-1 to finish second in Pool D with six points.

For Sports Authority of Gujarat, Ruchit Patel (4th, 17th, 39th, 41st, 49th, 52nd, 52nd), Pankaj Vaja (18th, 21st), Dhruvil Patel (21st, 38th), Shyamprakash Yadav (19th, 51st), Nikal Asari (44th), Vaibhav Shah (59th) and Sumit Patil (60th) sounded the board, while Krushnarajsinh Zala (46th) scored for Hockey Gujarat.

In a Pool E match, Bengaluru Hockey Association continued their invincible run as they beat Hockey Puducherry 5-2 to seal their place in the quarterfinal. They topped their Pool with three wins out of three matches.

Ramesh (23rd, 30th) and N Honnur Swamy (40th, 57th) scored twice each for Bengaluru Hockey Association while Rama Shankar (58th) also scored a goal. The two goals for Hockey Puducherry were scored by S Muthukrishnan (26th, 60th).

In another dead rubber in Pool E, it was Goans Hockey who registered their first victory of the competition by beating a win-less Hockey Bihar 4-3.

In a well-contested match, Goans Hockey led 3-0 after 26 minutes. Hockey Bihar pulled two goals back in two minutes which were also separated by a Goans Hockey goal in the 43rd minute, making the scores 4-2 in the latter's favour.

Hockey Bihar threatened in the latter stages of the match and scored a third goal in the 50th minute to make it a nervy last 10 minutes.

Goals for Goans Hockey were scored by Naresh Patil (7th, 13th), Suraj Gaonkar (26th) and Ayyaz Khan (43rd) while Vinay Xess (42nd), Samu Hassa (43rd) and Shambhu Kumar (50th) scored for Hockey Bihar.

In a Pool A match, Sports Authority of India notched up their third win, spanking a hapless Tripura Hockey side 13-0.

Abhishek (20th, 28th, 39th) and Pramod (22nd, 38th, 53rd) scored hat-tricks for Sports Authority of India while seven different players scored a goal each for the victors, namely Pravakar Minz (8th), captain Harshal Sharma (24th), Ravi (29th), Manish Sharma (40th), P Surya Prakash (43rd), B N Sridhar (50th) and Vikram (60th)