Muscat: India outsmarted Japan 3-1 while China accounted for South Korea 4-1 in the semifinals on Saturday night to set up a cracking final of the Women’s Junior Asia Cup hockey championship in Muscat Governorate.
Defending champions India will take on China in the final at the Hockey Oman Stadium in the Wilayat of Al Amerat on Sunday at 7 pm (Oman Time).
Losing semifinalists Japan and South Korea will meet each other in the third-place match at 4.30 pm.
An elated Indian coach Tushar Khandker said the girls put up a great performance in the crucial knockout stage.
“Our players had a great start and we managed well to keep our advantage until the end of the match,” Tushar told Oman Observer.
Responding to a query, he said the team didn’t have any pre-plans regarding the game.
“We responded brilliantly to the match situation and credit to the girls for taking good advantage of their chances early in the match.”
India had only lost to China 2-1 in their group match in Pool A.
The coach said India had rectified many shortfalls from that match in the later games.
“Our defence has rectified the mistakes and we are now focusing on making the most from our chances in front of the goal. Overall, the players’ confidence is high as we are ready for the final,” he concluded.
In the first semifinal, India started off in great fashion to pump in all their crucial goals in the first quarter itself.
Mumtaz Khan struck in the fourth minute with a brilliant field goal. Sakshi Rana made it 2-0 for India in the very next minute with another field goal.
Two minutes before the end of the first quarter, tournament’s leading scorer Deepika made no mistake from a penalty corner to earn her 11th goal in the Women’s Junior Asia Cup as India raced to a 3-0 goal.
Stunned by the early goals, Japan tried to regroup in the second quarter and were successful in returning one when Niko Maruyama found the net in the 23rd minute.
At half-time, India led 3-1.
In the third and fourth quarters, India’s defence put up a brilliant performance to deny Japan any more goals. Japan could not capitalise on the four penalty corners that they got in the last two quarters.
In total, India got only one penalty corner while Japan got five.
CHINA SUPREME
In the second semifinal, China mostly controlled the proceedings as Qingmiao Feng put them ahead in the sixth minute with a field goal.
In the second quarter, Lihang Wang made it 2-0 for China when she calmly netted a penalty stroke past South Korean goalkeeper Siwoo Ryu.
China led 2-0 at half-time.
Jiajing Lei found the third goal for China in the 40th minute. A brilliant counter-attack by South Korea led to their first goal of the match.
After some good passes, Seoyeon Park struck the goal past Chinese goalkeeper Mengyao Zhang in the 41st minute.
In the final quarter, China netted their fourth goal to confirm their triumph. Jinzhuang Tan scored from a penalty corner in the 53rd minute to make it 4-1.
In the 5-8 placement matches, Malaysia smashed 11 goals past Hong Kong, Thailand edged Chinese Taipei 2-1. Bangladesh thrashed Sri Lanka 8-0 to end ninth in the 10-team competition.
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