The Hockey leg of the 33rd annual National Schools’ Games commenced today at the Astro turf with rain interrupting proceedings considerably. This year’s competition will see more than 25 girls’ and boys’ teams participating in the tournament with the matches being played on a knock-out basis.
The first match in the boy’s category for the day was between St. John’s College Jaffna and Dharmaraja College. From the start, the match was disturbed many times by bad weather but St. John’s implemented very good offensive strategies to take the upper hand in the game. Kirushakan and Daniel of John’s college scored one goal each in the 38th and 39th minute as the game ended 2-0 in favour of the boys from Jaffna.
Dharamadutha College, Badulla was able to take an easy win against Sri Buddha Jayanthi’s College in the second match of the tournament. It was a one sided game with the Dharmadutha players dominating both offensive and defensive aspects of the game as they sealed a 8-0 win.
In the following match, D.S. Senanayake College recorded an excellent victory against Badulla Central College in the first round. Dilshan Laheer of D.S. scored 4 goals while his teammates Pasan Hirusha and Yasith Rashmina added one goal each; the final score read 8-0.
Most of the matches were postponed due to bad weather conditions and will be played tomorrow at Royal College, Sirimavo College and St. Peter’s College grounds.
