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by Pelham Juriansz

Arpico who clinched the "B" division title in the Mercantile hockey league tournament have kept their hopes alive of clinching the Air Lanka trophy knockout title as well when they defeated Janashakthi by 3 goals to one in their semi final encounter at the Malay Padang last Tuesday.

In the league match too Arpico trounced wooden spoonists Janashakthi by a massive 6 goals to nil. But it must be added in Janashakthi's favour that two years ago they were playing in the "D" division and playing in a higher category seems to be taking their toll on their rather inexperienced players.

Arpico, fielding a more experienced outfit ran circles round the Janashakthi defence to post an impressive 3 -1 victory.

Arpico first scored in the 5th minute through right inside Keerthi Weerasinghe, one of their most consistent scorers throughout the season and in the 15th minute Senanayake enhanced the lead for them.

Two minutes later Weerasinghe once again sounded the boards with a scintillating display of dribbling to make it 3 nil in favour of the "rubber" men.

After the turnaround in the 35th minute Balakumar scored a consolation goal for Janashakthi to make it 3-1, as Arpico emerged winners.

It must be mentioned that N.G. Ubeysiri and Keerthi Weerasinghe have had an outstanding season for Arpico.

On Thursday, Sampath Bank and Airport and Aviation met once again to battle it out for the second semi final berth when they met at the Padang and this time around Airport and Aviation managed to get the better of the Bankers when they clinched the second semi final position when they edged out Sampath Bank to gain a narrow 1 nil victory through a penalty shootout. There was no scoring in the normal playing time and Airport and Aviation managed to edge out Sampath Bank 1 nil to emerge winners.

Favourites Arpico will now meet Airport and Aviation today in the "B" division final at the Malay Padang.

Meanwhile the final points table for the "B" division league is as follows: 

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