LAHORE: Wapda, Sui Southern Gas Company, Customs and Punjab-A qualified for the National Junior Hockey Championship semi-finals here at the National Hockey Stadium on Thursday.

In the day’s most thrilling quarter-final, Wapda edged out Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-A 1-0 with the solitary goal coming from Ali Bahadur.

Though KP-A fought well against a strong Wapda side, their forwards failed to cash in on the chances they met. Ali put Wapda ahead as he struck a field goal in the 17th minute. However surprisingly, both the teams failed to click the scoreboard in the remaining time of play.

Two goals from Sami, including the winner in the 53rd minute, helped Customs earn a 2-1 victory against MPCL and book a place in the semi-finals.

After MPCL had earned an early lead through Arshad Liaqat who converted a short-corner in the seventh minute, Customs bounced back to equalise in the 40th minute, when Sami converted the first penalty-corner. He doubled the lead in the 53rd minute.

Meanwhile, a brace from Rizwan Ali who scored on penalty-corners inspired SSGC to an impressive 4-0 victory against Port Qasim Authority in their quarterfinal.

Rizwan struck back-to-back goals in the 42nd and 43rd minutes. Earlier, Abdul Manan (33rd) and Adeel Latif (35th) chipped in with a goal each.

In another quarter-final, Mohammad Usman’s two goals guided Punjab-A to a well-earned 4-2 win against Army-A. With this victory, Punjab-A became the only team from the provinces to reach the semi-finals.

Usman struck in the 3rd and 51st minutes while Amir Sohail (5th) and Murtaza Yaqoob (57th) were the other scorers from the victorious side. For Army-A, Muzammil Hussain (29th) and Mehran Ahmed (60th) scored the goals.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2019