Royal College ensured that their chances of defending their Blue and Gold Hockey 7s title stayed on track when they recorded three relatively straightforward victories over Sri Sumangala College, Bandaranaike College and Wesley College, to comfortably vault into the quarterfinal round, on the first day of the tournament at the Royal College grounds yesterday.
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| A Royalist and a Wesleyite battle for the ball. (Pix by Ranjith Perera.) |
The tournament's hosts and defending champions made a strong start to the day, brushing past Sri Sumangala 3-0 and Bandaranaike College 2-0, before edging past a determined Wesley College 1-0.
Wesley proved to be the most skilled of Royal's opponents so far and straight off the blocks they went at Royal with a penetrating run at goal. Their reward for this ambitious start was a quick and decisive flurry of counter- attacks from the Royalists, who wasted no time slamming their way into Wesley's penalty area.
The eventual breakthrough came just before halftime through a scintillating cross to Shahin Ahamed. Ahamed for his part evaded Wesley's defenders with equal skill and deftly flicked the ball into the goal.
In the second half Royal came close to adding to this slender lead on several occasions, dazzling the home crowd with threatening individual runs and dominant team play on defence.
In the women's bracket, the title holders, Seethadevi Girls' College, Kandy breezed into today's quarterfinals with two emphatic wins over Kalutara Balika and Bishop's College.
The Seethadevi girls looked unstoppable during both matches, warming up with an effortless 3-0 win over Kalutara before shifting into top gear to pound the Bishopians by 4 goals to nil.
Both the boys and girls quarterfinal matches will be worked off today at the Royal College grounds from 9 in the morning. This is the tenth edition of the Blue and Gold Hockey 7s, with this year's competition seeing 55 schools- 34 boy's teams and 21 girls' teams- vying for top honours.
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