St. Benedict's and Pushpadana win hockey titles

by S.M. Jiffrey ABDEEN Kandy Sports Corr.

SCHOOL GAMES: Pushpadana Girls College, Kandy, retained the championship title for the second successive year while St. Benedict's College, Kotahena won the boys championship after a long lapse at the Hockey National School Games organised by the Ministry of Education and the finals were played at the Nandimithra International Hockey Stadium in Matale during the week.

In the final for the girls championship, it turned to be an all Kandy affair and Pushpadana Girls College beat Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya by two goals to nil after a gruelling contest.

After a blank first half, the Pushpadana 'stickers' proved their superiority after the turn around when they scored goals through centre half Jeewanthi Kusala Jayaratne and centre forward Chathurika Ekanayake.

D.R.B. Dissanayake and Ajith Manjula umpired.

Visakha Vidyalaya beat Yasodara Vidyalaya 2 - 0 to clinch the third spot.

Earlier in the semi-finals, Pushpadana Girls College scored a close 1-0 win over Visakha Vidyalaya in a match which was as good as the finals while in the second semi final Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya beat Yasodara Vidyalaya 1-0.

Boys Tourney

St. Benedict's College, Kotahena, who performed consistently in the tournament recorded a thrilling 1-0 win over Nalanda College, Colombo in the final of the championship for boys to lift the title after a lapse of over 20 years. The Benedictines led 1-0 in the first.

This match turned out to be a game of missed opportunities for the Nalandian who missed as many as six potential chances of scoring due to peer finish by their forwards. Nalandians also put up a fine defence to foil their opponents from scoring. The only goal in the match came in the 20th minute of the first-half when the Benedictines were awarded a short corner and left-extreme Jayantha Susendra taking it drove the ball direct to skipper and centre half Shehan Samarasinghe who scooped the ball into the goal.

The second-half saw the Nalandian trying hard to obtain the equaliser while the Bens preserved their wafer thin lead during the entire 30 minutes of play.

Royal College, Colombo trounced Zahira College, Matale 7-1 to finish third in the losers finals. In the semi-finals, Nalanda College beat Zahira College, Matale 4-0 and St. Benedict's College had to fight hard to defat Royal College 2-1 in a game which rose to great heights.

The boys finals was umpired by S.N. Jayasinghe and Duminda Fernando.

Additional Zonal Director of Education, Matale, Jayaprakash distributed the main awards with Ranjith Wijesundera - Principal, Nalanda College.