Chhattisgarh win double crown in beach handball national tourney

Mumbai, Jun 4 (UNI) Chhattisgarh, which has no beach, however, continued their domination in the National Beach Handball tourney being crowned the Champions in the men's section for the fifth time in a row here today.

For Chhattisgarh it was a double sweet victory with their team also carrying home the women's trophy as well.

In the final their men downed Gujarat 2-0, while the women scored over Maharashtra via the tie-breaker 4-1.

The championships was hosted jointly by the Mumbai Handball Academy and the Amateur Handball Association of Mumbai at Mahim Beach.

The women's final turned out to be thriller all the way.

Chhattisgarh dominated the first half (16-7), while the second half belonged to Maharashtra, who took the honours (16-14). Since neither of them could win both halves, the tie was resolved via the tie-breaker with each team taking five shots at the goal. Here thanks to fine goalkeeping by Shabnam Bano, Chhatisgarh won by four goal to one. For the winners Karishma Sahu was the top scorer with seven goals, while for the losers, Gayatri Kawle excelled. She was latter named as the player of the final.

Chhattisgarh men players beat Gujarat, but not before Gujarat gave them a tough fight. In fact, both were going neck to neck in the first half with just few seconds remaining before Anil Kumar scored thrice in quick succession to give Chhattisgarh an upper hand (11-8). Thanks to some brilliant saving by goalkeeper Anand in the second session, who foiled Gujarat's attempts at least on six occasions giving Chhattisgarh the second half too with score reading 14-8 in their favour.

Internationals Praveen Kumar Singh and Firoz Ahmed Khan, Anil Kumar along with their goalkeeper Anand were the outstanding performers for Chhattisgarh, while Praveen Kumar excelled for the losers.

Individual best player awards (Finals): Women: Gayatri Kawle (Maharashtra).

Men: Anand (Chhattisgarh).

UNI