Corps of Signals, Jalandhar, and Kolkata outfit Eastern Railway Sports Association (ERSA) carved out contrasting victories to move into the quarter-finals of the Indian Oil Servo 109th All India Beighton Cup hockey tournament in Kolkata on Monday.
Corp of Signals edged out Karnataka XI through a late goal, while ERSA overcame early resistance from Andhra XI to chalk out a 5-2 win in pre-quarter-final matches during the day.
After a barren first-half, at the CC&FC ground, the Jalandhar side scored the all-important goal in the 60th minute when N S Salaria found the mark from a penalty-corner.
In the other encounter, ERSA went into the lead as early as the fifth minute thanks to a field strike by Poulus Soy, but G Manikyala Rao restored parity within two minutes following a combined attack.
Andhra then seized the lead in the 16th minute through T Santikumar, who showed fine opportunism to sound the board.
The sudden reversal of fortunes prompted ERSA to step up the accelerator, and they carried out constant raids into the opponent's territory.
Their endeavour bore fruit and Pitrus Ekka made the scoreline 2-2 in the 25th minute, while Yashveer Yadav again put the railway team ahead at the stroke of half-time.
ERSA were all over their opponents in the second session and Ekka (40th min) and Soy (63rd min) found the target to make the final tally 5-2.
More from rediff