Jharkhand continued its unbeaten run in the league stage with a 5-0 win against Jammu & Kashmir in its final Pool E match to finish on top of the group and qualify for the quarterfinals of the 12th Hockey India Senior men’s National championship here on Monday.
Denis Kerketta struck twice for the winner while captain Anurud Bhengra, Manohar Mundu and Birsa Oreya added one each as Jharkhand finished ahead of Chandigarh in Pool E, which rounded up its league assignment with a 6-4 win against Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu Hockey to finish in second spot with two wins and a loss.
Hat-trick by Nitish
In Pool F, Bengal won 7-2 against Arunachal Pradesh to book a spot in the last eight with Nitish Neupane scoring a hat-trick for the winner.
The other Pool F match had Puducherry overwhelming Gujarat 13-2, captain T. Arun Kumar scoring five. The final match of the day saw Assam beat Goa 6–0.
The results:
Pool E: Chandigarh 6 (Vishaljit Singh 2, Yograj Singh, Mohit, Amandeep, Kawaljit Singh) bt DNH-D&D 4 (Nabin Kujur 3, Vijendra Singh); Jharkhand 5 (Denis Kerketta 2, Anurud Bhengra, Manohar Mundu, Birsa Oreya) bt J&K 0.
Pool F: Bengal 7 (Nitish Neupane 3, Rajendra Oram 2, Kishor Lakra, Saurabh Kumar Singh) bt Arunachal 2 (Deepak Saini, Deepak); Puducherry 13 (T. Arun Kumar 5, Harikrishnan 2, R. Ranjith 2, Pooviyarasan, N. Kamala Kannan, Sellamuthu, E. Sudhan) bt Gujarat 2 (Shubham Yadav, Vrushang Patel).
Pool H: Assam 6 (Mohd Salman Khan 3, Shibom Bhowmick, Rahul Verma, Mohd Alfaij) bt Goa 0.
