Himachal Pradesh Youth Football Festival - Day 2

After the perfect opening ceremony yesterday, the 'ONGC' Himachal Pradesh Youth Football Festival had a splendid second day with an attractive brand of football being played out by teams participating from all over the state.

The day started on a high note with DFA Solan thrashing DFA Kangra 7-0. Luv Preet hit the back of the net three times in the space of only five minutes, getting the first hattrick of the festival. Debakar opened the scoring as early as the second minute before Sudhir hit a brace in the 14th and 24th minutes and the win was rounded-off by Jaspreet's goal in the 43rd minute of the game.

However, the Solan team bowed out of the tournament in a hard fought second round match against DFA Una. After the scoreline was locked at 1-1 at the end of the stipulated 60 minutes, the winner was decided through tie-breakers where Una defeated Solan 4-2.

Meanwhile SAI Kangra entered the main phase of the tournament where they will battle it out for the trophy with top teams from other states. After defeating DFA Mandi 5-2 in the morning, they beat the host Sirmour Red 2-0. In the morning Chander scored three and added two more in evening against the host to take his tally to five goals. Sajan and Himanshu scored the two other goals in their 5-2 win against DFA Mandi.

Meanwhile the match between Pinegrow School, Solan and DFA Hamirpur turned out to be the most intensive match of the day with the former losing out by a goal. Ishant Rana was the hero for the Hamirpur side scoring in the 40th minute.

The two other matches of the day turned out to be one-sided affairs where the hosts' second team, Sirmour Blue, thrashed DFA Kirnuor 9-0 while Dharamshala Football Academy thrashed DFA Shimla 6-0. For Sirmour, Amit scored three goals, Ranjan and Kapil scored two each while Vivek and Vikram scored the others goals.

For Dharamshala Deepak was the star performer who pumped in three goals while Abhilakshya scored a brace and Mayukh the other goal.

With three other teams from the state to be decided later, the main phase of the tournament will kick off tomorrow where four state teams will rub shoulders with youth teams from other parts of the country.