Star Sports and Cultural Club Guddi Paroda win junior boys hockey title

 

Star Sports and Cultural Club Guddi Paroda emerged on top defeating Young Sports Hockey Club Mapusa 6-5 in the penalty shootout to win the Goans Hockey state level championship for junior boys.

It was the fighting spirit of the Guddi boys which was in the forefront as they came made a late rally to draw level with two field goals in the last four minutes of the match to draw level the match at 4-4 and then prevail in the penalty shootout.

In the shootout, Krish Gaunkar and Bharat Gaunkar scored for Star Sports and Cultural Club. But the man who stood between Young Sports Hockey Club win turned out to be goalkeeper Armaan Kumar who made four saves out of the possible five tries from the opponents to hand his team a memorable win.

In the normal period of play, the Guddi boys took the lead with Suhel Gauncar finding the target with a penalty corner conversion.

Young Sports came back to draw level in the 17^th minute with a penalty corner conversion from Abhay and went on to score two more goals in the 19^th and 36 minutes through Deepak and Vasant, both which were field goals.

The boys who are students of Damodar English High School and its Higher Secondary School and who train under Amit Dessai and Laxman Prabhudessai, the Physical Education teacher at the educational institute, showed nerves of steel to fight back.

Yatharath Gauncar, Kunal Gauncar and Sanket Patil scored in the 39^th, 57^th and 59^th scored field goals to put the team on level terms while Vasant scored his second goal of the match in the 55^th minute for Young Sports.

Young Sports Hockey Club is a youth development club started by former Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs coach Alexander Remedios along with likeminded individuals from in and around Mapusa.