WIFA Inter-District Girl’s Under-17 football tournament

Energetic striker Sania scores 6 in Palghar’s win

by Suman Gupta

Nashik: Energetic striker Sania Khan showed plenty of opportunism and hammered home six goals which was the highlight of Palghar DFA’s convincing 11-0 win against Gondia DFA in a one-sided second round match of the WIFA Inter-District Girl’s Under-17 football tournament, played at the Minatai Thakare Stadium, Nashik on Sunday.

Besides Sania’s brilliant efforts, her teammates Shruti Waghela contributed three goals and Aastha Tandel netted two goals to complete the big win.

In the second match, Kolhapur DFA showed good understanding and perfect teamwork to outplay Jalgaon DFA posting a comfortable 8-0 victory in another second round match.

The Palghar girls, who had defeated Amravati 9-0 in the opening round, immediately got down to business and took the lead through Aastha in the very first minute. Aastha doubled the lead with the second in the 13^th minute and two minutes later Shruti got the first of her three goals. With not much resistance from the Gondia girls, Palghar’s enterprising striker Sania scored two quick goals just before the half-time whistle to give her team a commanding 5-0 half-time lead.

On resumption, Palghar outfit continued to call the shots and Shruti and Sania scored at regular intervals to complete their impressive victory.

Earlier, Kolhapur faced initial opposition from the Jalgaon girls and could only score twice through Aarti Katkar in the opening period to gain a 2-0 cushion.

However, after the teams switched ends, the Kolhapur outfit completely dominated the proceedings and struck six times in the second session to finish on a high. Strikers Sharvari Dontar and Soumya Kagale, both scored a brace of goals each while teammates Nidha Satarmekar and Rajnandini Bhoite made their presence felt scoring one goal apiece to round off the winning margin.

In another match, Mumbai DFA got the better of Yavatmal DFA by a 3-0 margin. Striker Gaia Ferro scored a brace of goals and Asmi Kulkarni added the third to seal Mumbai’s win.

Results: Kolhapur DFA 8 (Aarti Katkar 2, Sharvari Dontar 2, Soumya Kagale 2, Nidha Satarmekar, Rajnandini Bhoite) beat Jalgaon DFA 0.

Mumbai DFA 3 (Gaia Ferro 2, Asmi Kulkarni) beat Yavatmal DFA 0.

Palghar DFA 11 (Sania Khan 6, Shruti Waghela 3, Aastha Tandel 2) beat Gondia DFA 0.