Uchekon claim men’s title

South Eastern succumb to 4-2 loss

Thongju hockey

A Uchekon Youth Athletic Club player (orange) stretches out to thwart a South Eastern players’ run at Meira Bashikhong in Imphal on Thursday. Telegraph picture Uchekon Youth Athletic Club claimed the men’s hockey title of the 1st Thongju Kendra Sports Festival 2009. In the final match played today, Uchekon Youth Athletic Club defeated South Eastern Youth Organisation by 4-2 goals to emerge the winner, while the latter had to settle for the runners-up title. The trophy will be distributed after the completion of all the other events in the festival. Uchekon Youth Athletic Club should have won the match with a better goal margin, but they missed two penalty strokes of the three they got in the match. Uchekon Youth Athletic Club ruled the first half of the match with an iron hand and adopted an attacking strategy to push their opponents South Eastern Youth Organisation on to the backfoot. Despite playing a defensive game, South Eastern failed to stop their marauding counterparts and Uchekon took the upper hand by pumping in two goals. M. Mirple Singh fetched the first field goal in the 28th minute to take the lead while M. Jeetendro Singh displayed a perfect execution of the penalty stroke in the 32nd minute before half-time. In the second half, there was a long lull with most of the action limiting itself to the midfield as South Eastern Youth Organisation finally found their rhythm to give Uchekon Youth a run for their money. However, P. Adeva Singh broke the deadlock netting the ball in the 52 minute to bring up the third Uchekon Youth goal. South Eastern Youth Organisation hit back with determination and broke the shackles in the 54th minute as Th. Sanjit Singh fetched his team the opening goal. However, within the next minute, Uchekon hammered in their fourth goal with N. Romesh Singh joining the party in the 55th minute. South Eastern got their second goal from a penalty stroke converted by Ksh. Nippo to tone down the score to 2-4 goal in the final hours of play. Uchekon got eight penalty corners while South Eastern Youth Organisation were awarded six, but none of them were converted by the teams today.