PANAJI
Hosts Goa won three more medals with netball men’s team clinching silver and two bronze medals in pencak silat to take their medals tally to nine in the 37th National Games at the Campal Indoor stadium on Friday.
In the netball competition that ended at the Campal Indoor stadium on Friday, the Goa men’s team lost the Fast5 final 33-22 against Haryana to end their rousing campaign just short of the biggest prize.
Having failed to qualify for the semi-finals in the traditional format, Goa’s men had made amends in the Fast5 format, finishing second behind Haryana in the group stage. On Friday morning, they pipped Karnataka 42-41 in the semi-finals to set up yet another clash against favourites Haryana in the final.
In the summit clash played in the evening, Haryana began aggressively and opened up a 12-3 lead in the first quarter. Goa managed to pull things back with Sanmay Bandekar scoring six points to help his team reduce the deficit to five points with the score reading 16-11 at halftime.
The hosts continued their strong showing, intercepting Haryana’s passes to go into the fourth and final quarter trailing 18-20 and raised hopes of a possible upset. However, Haryana showed why they were such a formidable side as they scored 13 points in the final quarter to win comfortably.
Goa coach Sandeep Shetkar was extremely happy with the team’s overall performance. “We could not win a medal in the traditional format but all our matches were very close and we were slightly unlucky. But I am happy that we made amends in the Fast5 format and have a silver medal to show for our effort,” he said, adding this team would only go places from here on.
Two more medals in pencak silat
The hosts continued their medal-winning spree in the martial art form pencak silat with bronze medals in artistic regu male and artistic tunggal female category. The trio of Aley Da Silva, Pratik Nayak and Ryan Fernandes impressed with their performance in regu to clinch bronze along with Uttarakhand. Maharashtra took home the gold with Odisha bagging silver medal.
In artistic tunggal female category, Heena Kausar of Goa earned a bronze medal, taking the State's tally from the sport to five medals. Haryana’s Simran bagged the gold while Krishna Yewale of Maharashtra won the bronze. Megha Gaur of Delhi was the recipient of the other bronze medal.
