Navy women stickers prove their supremacy

S M Jiffrey Abdeen Kandy Sports Correspondent

Sri Lanka Navy Women’s hockey team have underlined their supremacy in the Local women’s hockey scene by winning both the league and knock out hockey tournaments organised by the Colombo Hockey Association this year. They won the league title in January and followed up with the knock out title in February giving themselves a rousing start with many more tournaments to come in the coming months.

The dominance by the Navy women stickers so great in the league tournament that they scored 46 goals whilst conceding only two. In the knock out tournament they won the semi-finals, 4-0 and the finals also by the some margin which proves beyond doubt that they made mince meat out of their opponents.

Their performance is a reflection of their dedication for this sport as a majority of the stickers are from Kandy and they practice in the hill capital either at the Getambe Municipal grounds or the Campus grounds, Peradeniya and play most of their matches in Colombo and some of the tournament games in Matale.

Their resurgence in this sport came around three years ago when some top stickers from Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya, Kandy, and a few others found employment in Sri Lanka Navy and were able to continue their hockey in a big way. Otherwise they would have either settled down in life or found employment elsewhere and their hockey would have come to an end.

A peep into the recent past of Navy’s hockey, that they had won several championship titles and most of them seven-a-side championships as very few tournaments have been conducted in the longer version of the game. They have clinched the Seetha Devi Sevens, Vijaya Sevens and the Sevens Tournaments conducted by the Sri Lanka Hockey Federation. They have also remained unbeaten in the National Hockey Championship for the past three years winning championship titles. Majority of these stickers have also played for the Kandy District teams and the Central Province teams in the tournaments conducted by the Ministry of Sports and excelled by winning championship honours especially in the womens hockey nationals which they have won for a record 18 years in a row.

This year the Navy womens hockey team is led by Former Seetha Devi BV and Central Province sticker Jeewanthi Keerthiratne who has displayed excellent leadership qualities. They are coached by former St Sylvesters College sticker and Junior National Hockey Coach M A M Ashroff who has produced champion hockey teams from Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya, Kandy despite not having a playground of their own. They have won over 40 hockey titles since started playing this game barely 20 years ago and Ashroff has coached them all throughout and is now assisted by Nadarajah Paraneetharan.

It was both dedication and application with a will to win both by the players and guided by the coach which has resulted in the Navy girls shining in hockey. This success would not have been possible if not for the support and encouragement given by the officials of the Sri Lanka Navy from the Navy Commander and others involved in sports and more particularly hockey.

The present Navy team has no less than 15 players from Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya and most of them have played for the national both at junior and senior level. Their squad is Jeewanthi Keethiratne (captain), Chathurika Wijesuriya, Vajira Rajapakse, Sandhya Dayananda, Damayanthi Dayananda, Buddhika Gunaratne, Geetha Damayanthi, Geetha Abeyratne, Harshani Kumari, Dharshani Herath, Buddhika Nelum Kumari, Madura Dharmaratne, Maneesha Dissanayake, Yamuna Wijesuriya, Pradeepa Nilmini, Madhushani Jayanetti, Charmaine Jones, Nilmini Chandraratne, I Imasha and G Samanthi.

Their centre forward Chathurika Wijesuriya has become a sort of a ‘Delta Force’ and much feared by their opponents for the power play she is known for. Lithe and not heavily built she is a virtual power house. She created a record by scoring four hat-tricks in the Ladies Invitation hockey tournament organised by the Colombo Hockey Association. Then in the finals of the Colombo Hockey Association’s Ladies Knock out tournament right inside Buddhika Nelum Kumari scored a hat-trick to spearhead her side to victory. These are just a few performance of excellence by the Navy stickers.

Coach M A M Ashroff said that it is very easy to work with hierarchy of the Navy as they support us to the hilt and they provide us with all our requirements and the hockey players are well looked after and all what is left to us is to perform and this we are doing.

Navy women stickers dominance in local hockey scene so great that in the League Tournament of the CHA they scored a record 46 goals against just two by their opponents. Their best effort was the 15-0 win against a hapless BRC with Chathurika Wijesuriya slamming six goals. They beat Yasodara Hockey Club 9-0 and once again Chathurika Wijesuriya collected a hat-trick an this was her scene one for the day as both matches were played on the same day. They beat Moratuwa University 6-0 and it was a case of hat-trick of goals by Chathurika Wijesuriya. In the final league match Navy beat Colombo Combined Ladies 10-0 Chathurika Wijesuriya slammed five of these goals to round off with her fourth hat-trick in the tournament.

In the Colombo HA’s Invitation knock out tournament Navy beat BRC 4-0 in the semi finals and won the finals against Sri Lanka Air Force by 4-0 with Nelum Buddhika Kumari scoring a hat-trick of goals. The year is just two months old and the Navy women stickers are expected to perform greater deeds in the coming months.