Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) scrambled to an unconvincing 5-2 win over Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd to book their berth in the final of Hockey Karnataka's inaugural Bengaluru Cup All-India tournament here Tuesday.
IOCL could have won by a bigger margin but for the prodigality of their forwards in missing chances and two late goals by former India winger Prabhjot Singh helped them through the final minutes when BPCL looked certain to draw level.
The other IOCL strikes came from Gurjinder Singh who converted two penalty corners on either side of a Deepak Thakur goal in the first half while BPCL responded through two penalty corners conversions by Gurpreet Singh, who later failed with a penalty stroke, and Tushar Khandekar.
The victory took IOCL's tally to nine points in the five-team men's competition while BPCL have lost two of their three matches and drawn the other.
In the other men's match, a hat-trick by penalty corner specialist Ganganpreet Singh took Air India to a 6-2 win over Karnataka XI.
Air India completed their league engagements with six points while the home team remained on three following their second defeat in three outings.
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In the women's section, Haryana overcame Central Railway 2-0 for their third straight victory in as many matches while Karnataka XI overcame Tamil Nadu XI 4-3.
The results:
Men: IOCL 5 (Gurjinder Singh 7th, 32nd, Deepak Thakur 15th, Prabhjot Singh 66th, 69th) beat BPCL 2 (Gurpreet Singh 26th, Tushar Khandekar 62nd).
Air India 6 (Muthanna BK 4th, Gaganpreet Singh 14th, 22nd, 30th, Joga Singh 39th, 49th) beat Karnataka XI 2 (Kusha KP 34th, Biddappa KD 54th).
Women: Karnataka XI 4 (Komala BM 12th, Muthamma PG 15th, Sandhya HP 42nd, 54th) beat
Tamil Nadu 3 (M Cladisando 28th, K Kalavathi 30th, Vijaya Lakshmi 55th).
Haryana 2 (Jyoti Gupta 43rd, 64th) beat Central Railway 0.