St. Peter’s Hockey Championship 2023

by Prashant Kapadia/NHN

Photo caption – Master Men: The victorious Mumbai Ports Authority players are in a jubilant mood as they pose with the ‘Champions’ trophy after beating Mumbai Raje 2-1 in the Masters Men’s final of the St. Peter’s Youth Centre organized St. Peter’s Hockey Championship 2023 and played at the St. Stanislaus HS Astro Park, Bandra.

Photo caption – Women: The victorious Central Railway players are in a jubilant mood as they pose with the ‘Champions’ trophy after beating Western Railway 5-4 in the Women’s final of the St. Peter’s Youth Centre organized St. Peter’s Hockey Championship 2023 and played at the St. Stanislaus HS Astro Park, Bandra.

Mumbai Ports clinch St. Peter’s hockey title

Mumbai, June 13: Mumbai Ports Authority (MPA) played with plenty of tenacity and stunned formidable Mumbai Raje by recording a fighting 2-1 victory in the Masters Men’s final of the St. Peter’s Youth Centre organized St. Peter’s Hockey Championship 2023 and played at the St. Stanislaus HS Astro Park, Bandra. This defeat put an end to Mumbai Raje remarkable unbeaten winning streak, which saw them win close to a dozen titles and the tag of the undisputed kings.

The MPA players showed good understanding and perfect teamwork as they worked in unison to unsettle the Mumbai Raje outfit boasting of former international stars in the ranks. The MPA midfielders and defenders combined nicely and were quick to intercept passes of the rival attackers and ensure there were not many threats to their goal.

Against the run of play, MPA took the lead with Digvijay Naik tapping home from close following a snap move down the middle. Later, MPA full backs Sridhar Krishnamurthy sounded the boards with a crisp penalty corner drive to double the lead.

Mumbai Raje tried their best to fight back, but a resolute MPA defence time and again thwarted the forays of the rivals. But, late in the game Mumbai Raje finally managed to score a goal through Girish Pimpale and then pressed hard to score an equalizing goal, but all their efforts went in vain and they were forced to finish as runners-up.

Later, Central Railway fought back to overcome arch-rivals Western Railway 5-4 via the penalty shootout to emerge victorious in the Women’s final. Central Railway trailing 1-3 gallantly fought back scoring two goals in the final quarter to level the scores at 3-all and force the penalty shootout. Anjali Mehto, Anupa Barla and Vertika Rawat scored a goal each to give Western Railway the advantage. Central Railway scored the first goal through Raju S. before Preeti Dubey scored two goals, one from a penalty stroke to draw the match and the officials enforced the penalties to decide the outcome of the match.

Central Railway successfully scored through Preeti Dubey and Raju S. while only Anjali Mehto managed to convert for Western Railway.

Results – Masters Men (final): Mumbai Ports Authority 2 (Digvijay Naik, Sridhar Krishnamurthy) beat Mumbai Raje 1 (Girish Pimpale).

Women (final): Central Railway 5 (Preeti Dubey 3, Raju S. 2) beat Western Railway 4 (Anjali Mehto 2, Anupa Barla, Vertika Rawat).