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

Aarti’s superb hat-trick helps Kolhapur emerge champions

by Suman Gupta

Nashik: Bolstered by striker Aarti Katkar’s outstanding efforts which resulted in a hat-trick of goals, Kolhapur DFA emerged champions defeating Pune DFA by a convincing 4-0 margin in the final of the WIFA Inter-District Girl’s Under-17 football tournament, played at the Minatai Thakare Stadium, Nashik.

The Kolhapur girls showed more aggression and excellent teamwork to completely dominate play against the Pune outfit. Attacking from the outset, Kolhapur struck the opening goal through Aarti’s fine effort in the very third minute of play. The Pune girls fought on gamely but could not stop the rivals from scoring the second also through Aarti just before the half-time whistle.

After switching ends, the Pune outfit put up a better display and created quite a few chances which they failed to capitalize on and put up a fight.

Late in the match, the Kolhapur side once again started to put pressure on the Pune citadel and Aarti was again in the thick of the action by completing her hat-trick and giving her team a solid 3-0 cushion. With the contested wrapped up in their favour Kolhapur added the fourth with Sharvari Dontar finding the net in the final moments of the match and seal their triumph,

Results – final: Kolhapur DFA 4 (Aarti Katkar 3, Sharvari Donkar) beat Pune DFA 0.