CP under-19 hockey tournament:

Christ Church and Sangamitta hockey champions

by S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen, Kandy Sports Corr.

Christ Church College, Matale and Sangamitta Girls’ College, Matale became boys and girls under-19 hockey champions of the Central Province in the hockey championship organised by the Department of Education of the Central Province and worked at the Nandimithra Ekanayake International Hockey Stadium, Matale.

In the championship for Girls Sangamitta Girls College edged out the defending champions Seetha Devi Girls College, Kandy 1-0 on penalty strokes after the scores stood level one all at the end of the regulation time.

Sangamitta Girls College got into an early lead when centre forward Sandaruwani Jayaratne spotting an opening dribbled past two defenders to sound the boards. They maintained this 1-0 lead till the short break.

But in the second half, the Seetha Devi stickers fought back tenaciously with centre forward Sapuni Guruge attempting to punch holes in the opponents defence several time succeeded three mintues from the end to get equaliser.

With the scores level and the organisers implemented the penalty tie breaker system in which Sangamitta scored through Havanjani Ekanayake while Seetha Devi missed their penalty stroke in the single series.

Ajith Manjula and G.G. Abeyratne umpired.

In the fight for the third slot Pushpadana Girls’ College beat St. Anthony’s Girls College, Kandy 1-0 to qualify for participation in the National School Games along with Sangamitta Girls’ College and Seetha Devi Girls’ College from the Central Province.

The boys finals turned out to be a big farce as due to very heavy rains the astro turf at this venue was water logged and puddles of water was seen on the astro turf and the drainage was slow as this facility is over ten years old and had seen better days and needs replacement.

The two finalists were Zahira College, Matale and Christ Church College, Matale and a decision in this match was foremost in the minds of the organisers who decided not to play the match, but to implement the penalty tie breaker system to decide on the winners.

Christ Church College taking the stroke first scored through Buddhika Naveen Peiris while Zahira College missed scoring in this single series tie breaker.

The match was over in two strokes and lasted less than five minutes – a strange way to complete the finals of an important tournament.

Many spectators who turned up of this match felt that since both schools were from Matale, the organisers could have put off the finals for another day without resorting to the ‘hit or miss’ penalty stroke system.