Shiva Sankari slammed in seven goals, including a hat-trick, to help Karnataka storm into the quarter-final league with a 18-0 rout of Jammu and Kashmir in the National women's football championship in Chennai on Thursday.
Karnataka's massive victory put paid to the aspirations of Tripura, last year's quarter-finalists. Both these teams ended their engagements with a win and a loss besides a draw played out between themselves.
With a goal difference of plus-17 as against Tripura's plus-12, Karnataka progressed to the next stage along with Goa, who beat Tripura 1-0.
In Group 'C' matches, Punjab ousted Chandigarh with a 12-0 win, while Kerala drew with Haryana 1-1.
Kerala ended their outings with four points, while Punjab won both their matches to collect six points. They have a match to go against Haryana (4 pts) tomorrow.
Tripura, who needed a draw to progress, were beaten by a 56th minute goal by Sharon Fernandes.
In the Karnataka-J&K match, striker Shiva Shankari of Karnataka was the pick of the lot and in fact all the players dished out their best.
Karnataka failed to score even a single goal in the last edition but they have improved upon their game to a great extent during the last year.
Nesa Kumari opened the goal hunt in the 12th minute and then Shankari scored four goals in a row and Amoolya scored five. Vanitha (2) and Vinutha Jadav were the other scorers.
For Punjab, Karamjit Kaur and Gurmeet Kaur scored four goals each while Harjinder Kaur, Shanrajit Kaur, Arti and Harkamal netted a goal each to down Chandigarh.
In the Haryana-Kerala match, Haryana went into the lead through Sonika off a pass from Reena and then Kerala found the equaliser through Angel Adolphes.
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