ISLAMABAD, March 21: Gujranwala qualified for the finals of the National Hockey Championship on Tuesday after defeating Malakand in the Islamabad preliminary round at the Naseer Bunda Stadium. The 4-1 victory put Gujranwala on top of Pool A from which the other team to advance was Peshawar. Sargodha and Faisalabad made it from Pool B although their final standing will be known only on Wednesday.

Lahore Colours who beat Azad Kashmir 3-1 on Tuesday checked in from Pool C. Another three remaining berths in the finals will become clear following Wednesday’s matches.

Gujranwala achieved their victory through goals by Muzammal who scored twice and a strike each from Adeel and Fayyaz while Salman netted Malakand’s only goal.

For Lahore Colours, Shafqat Rasul, Sajjad Anwar and Khalid were on target with Najeeb Aslam the scorer for Azad Kashmir.

In another match Islamabad routed Kohat 6-1, Ziaullah Shah and Mohammad Hafeez sharing four goals and Zakirullah and Afan Saeed adding one each. Amir put in Kohat’s face-saving goal.

Hazara and Mardan battled to a 5-5 draw with Riasat (2), Atif (2) and Kamran (1) taking the scoring honours for Hazara. The rivals got their goals via a Naveed brace and a goal each from Tayyab, Anwar Nawab and Muhammad Fayyaz.

Our Lahore Correspondent adds: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) beat NWFP 7-4 on penalty-stroke on Tuesday in Inter-provincial Under-17 boys hockey championship at the National Hockey Stadium.

Both the teams were locked at 3-3 at end of the regulation time and failed to add any score in the extra time extending the match into five penalty-stroke each.

The winners cashed in on four penalty-strokes through Waqar Hussain, Mohsin Ashraf, Sohrab Aslam and Hammad.

The NWFP scored twice through Ijaz and Ziaur Rehman.

Earlier, Waqar Hussain (7th minute), Sohrab Aslam (16th minute) and Mohammad Faheem (65th minute) scored during the schedule time for the winners.

Najeebullah (8th minute), Mohammad Razzaq (31st minute) and Hafeezullah (33rd minute) banged home for the losers.

Three-goal Humair Munir enabled Balochistan to earn an easy 7- 1 win against Fata.

Humair scored in the 6th, 21st and 69th minute. Rehmat Ali (15th, 57th minutes) and Jahangir Khan (56th, 69th minutes) were the other scorers.

For the losers, Khateer Jamal scored the consolation goal in the 46th minute.

Wednesday’s fixtures. AJK vs Sindh; Punjab vs Balochistan.