Santosh Trophy: Goa, Punjab win

KOLKATA - Goa and Punjab rode on second half strikes to begin their quarter final group A campaign at the 64th Santosh Trophy inter-state football competition with identical solitary goal wins here Thursday

While substitute Cavin Lobo found the target for Goa against Karnataka, Punjab logged full points against Services, courtesy a Rohit Kumar conversion.

Lobo, introduced in the early minutes of the second session, made his presence felt and came near scoring at least on three occasions. However, he managed to finally score the winner in injury time with a power-packed right foot long ranger that gave no chance to Karnataka custodian Nagendra, who otherwise had a good day.

The goalkeeper blocked Lobo’s effort just after the stroke of an hour eight mintues before the striker’s firm shot crashed into the bar and seemed to have dropped over the line. But the linesman signalled a goal kick.

Karnataka also got a couple of opportunities. In the early minutes, Ngurnei Lal’s header off a flag kick hit the post, while Satish Kumar failed to do the finishing act late in the second half.

Hosts and last year’s runners-up Bengal play their tournament lung opener opposite Delhi, while Tamil Nadu clash with Mizoram in Group B quarter final matches Friday.