Coimbatore: Bringing laurels to the South India, Satchidananda Jothi Nikethan International School located in the foothills of the blue mountains in Kallar has set a new record as they clinched their first-ever national hockey tournament for CBSE schools in girls under 17 years category, held at Dr Amrit Lal Ishrat Memorial Sunbeam School, Varanasi on Tuesday.
Coimbatore: Bringing laurels to the South India, Satchidananda Jothi Nikethan International School located in the foothills of the blue mountains in Kallar has set a new record as they clinched their first-ever national hockey tournament for CBSE schools in girls under 17 years category, held at Dr Amrit Lal Ishrat Memorial Sunbeam School, Varanasi on Tuesday.
Girls from Satchidananda made the city proud by winning National title for the first time in 25 years in the history of National Hockey Tournament for CBSE schools. Satchidananda girls have won all their matches in the league stage and in knockouts. This clean sweep resulted in a historic win for the team.
Satchidananda dominated the league stage matches as they thrashed the opponents with a huge margin to enter semi-finals of the tournament where they defeated General Raj Senior Secondary school, New Delhi with a mammoth margin by 4-1 to enter finals in style.
In the finals, Satchidananda defeated Karnataka's Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan by 3-1 to clinch an easy victory in the finals to lift the Trophy for the first time. Earlier, it was a draw affair when the finalist met in the league stage.
S Varshini of Satchidananda was selected as Best Forward Player of the tournament while C.V. Dhanusha was selected as the best defender of the tournament.
Similarly, in boys under 17 years category, Satchidananda Jothi Nikethan School ended up securing a bronze medal in the tournament. S.S. Sree Ram of Satchidananda was selected as the best forward player of the tournament.
Talking to Simplicity, J Jerard Arokiaraj, Physical Director of Satchidananda Jothi Nikethan International School said that, "It was a team effort from both boys and girls team as they adapted to the atmosphere very quickly and played extremely well to bring us laurels. Though we worked hard for the last two months for this tournament, the students kept themselves focused and won the tournament."
"This is the first-ever National Level Tournament Trophy by a south Indian CBSE school teams for the last 25 years. Till last year it was Punjab and Haryana dominating the tournament but this time around our girls made us proud as they sailed over every tough contender in the tournament to lift this trophy," he added.
The champions on their return to Coimbatore from Varanasi, met S.P Velumani, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department in his office at RS Puram here. The Minister S.P honoured the winners and congratulated them for the achievement and wished them success for their future.
Along with S.P Velumani, K Rajamani, Coimbatore District Collector, K Ramasamy, Managing Trustee of Satchidananda School, Kavidasan, Secretary of Satchidananda school, J Jerard Arokiaraj, Physical Director, S Yoganand and T.P Anitha Coches were present.