It rained goals on opening day

Chennai, June 18 (UNI) It was a goal glut, as many as 80 goals were scored spread over eight league matches, on the opening day of the St Josephs-TNHA Junior National Hockey Championship which began here today.

Leading the massacre of innocents was the host Tamil Nadu, which swamped Madhya Bharath 18-0 in Group A, followed by Air India's 14-0 mauling of Chattisgarh in Group-E. Gujarat pole-axed Vidarbha 12-3 in the other Group A contest and Namdhari subdued Delhi 4-1 in Group E at the SAF Games Hockey stadium.

In the other matches at YMCA Grounds, Bihar trounced a hapless Gujarat 13-1 in Group-A, while Mizoram pummelled Maharashtra 7-0 in Group C. The only contests that went close was between Madhya Pradesh and Haryana in Group C which the latter won 3-2 and IOC scored a 2-0 win over Uttar Pradesh in Group G.

It turned out to be a target practice for the home team which sliced through the disjointed rival defence time and again. Goals flowed like a cascade as Madhya Bharat could not arrest the onslaught of the Tamil Nadu forwards, who scored from all angles.

Shyamkumar opened the sluice gates as early as in the fifth minute scoring his fist of the four goals. Thereafter Vinod Rayar took over slamming six goals. Harikrishnan, Raja, Heartlyn James (two goals each) and Lakshman Karan, Vivek (one each) also contributed well to complete the rout.

Tamil Nadu led 8-0 at half time before running amock in the second half with Vinod scoring in the sixth, 22nd, 26th, 54th, 67th and 68th minutes, to emerge as the top scorer of the day.

Results: Bihar-13 (Vinay-6, Bhim Kumar-4, including a hat-trick, Anoop topno, Mukesh Lakra and Deva-one each) bt Gujarat-1 (Vijay Thapa).

Haryana-3 (Ved Prakash-2 and Sandeep kumar-1) bt Madhya Pradesh-2 (Gunandra and Irshad Khan-one each).

Mizoram-7 (Nalidlanzbua-2 and Lalrindheta-2, Lalbuhawala-1, Dawing lama-1, Lalngamhawama-1) bt Maharashstra-0.

IOC Bt Uttar Pradesh 2-0 (Harbir singh and Jagwant singh).

Air India-14 (Danish-5, Ashish Minz-2, Mayank James-2, I Kullu-2, Mohd Imran-1, Vinod Kumar-1, Pramod-1) bt Chattisgarh-0 Namdhari-4 (Baljinder Singh-2, Gurvinder singh-1, Karamjit singh-1) bt Delhi-1 (Ravinder-1).

Vidarbha-12 (Ameer Khan-4, Athur Mishra-4, Imran Khan-1, Nilesh Bindra-1, Rakesh Kambli-1, Ananta Yerawar-1) bt Gujarat-3 (Bhagirath Singh-2, Vijay Thapa-1) Tamil Nadu-18 (Vinod Rayar-6, Shyam Kumar-4, Harikrishnan-2, Raja-2, Heartlyn James-2, Lakshman Karan-1, Vivek-1) bt Madhya Bharat-0.

UNI