Haryana clinch junior men''s national championship

Jalandhar, Aug 23 (PTI) Haryana pumped in three goals in the final quarter to clinch the junior men's national championship with a close 3-2 win over Odisha in a thrilling final, here Saturday.

Punjab clinched the bronze medal with a 4-3 shoot-out win over Uttar Pradesh.

In the final, both sides exchanged possession but failed to find an opening goal. In the second quarter, Odisha showcased brilliant skill by converting two successive penalty corners courtesy Deepak Pradhan (17') and Pratap Toppo (19') to take a comfortable 2-0 lead.

The scores remained the same in the third quarter, but Haryana turned the game on its head in the final quarter of the match.

Chirag (50') scored his side's first goal through a penalty corner and in the very next minute, his teammate Nitin (51', 60') scored a field goal to level the game..

Moments later in the final minute of the match, Nitin skillfully dribbled past two defenders and fired a shot from distance to score the winning goal for Haryana and claim the championship.

In the 3rd/4th place match, Uttar Pradesh scored early in the first quarter as Satyam Pandey (8') converted a penalty corner to open the scoring.

Punjab replied with two goals in the second quarter by Lovenoor Singh (21') and Japnit Singh (28', 59') to take the lead.

The third quarter saw the tide shift to Uttar Pradesh way as Ujjwal Pal (48') and Fahad Khan (57') scored to take the lead again.

In the last minute, Punjab's Japnit Singh scored a penalty stroke to push the game into a shootout..

Charanjeet Singh, Lovenoor Singh, Om Rajnesh Saini and Sunny were the goalscorers for Hockey Punjab in the shootout. PTI AT AT KHS