Central Reserve Police Force edged past All India Major Ports while Army XI outplayed Central Industrial Security Force to move to the quarter-finals of the 108th All India Beighton Cup hockey tournament in Kolkata on Thursday.
CRPF overcame a spirited challenge from All India Major Ports to win the match 7-6 via the tie-breaker after finishing 1-1 in the scheduled time.
Tanveer Jamal gave an early lead to CRPF in the ninth minute but All India Ports drew level two minutes later as Digvijay Nayak found the target from a penalty-corner.
Though squandering a lead, CRPF managed to register a victory by winning the tie-breaker 6-5.
Mukesh Kumar and S K Vist struck twice and Prabhat Sahany and V Hembran scored a goal apiece for CRPF while Prakash Toppo scored twice and Abhijit Shirsat, Digvijay Nayak and Prabhu Soy netted once each for Ports.
In the other match, Army XI were held goalless by CISF in normal time but snatched a 3-2 win as the match rolled into the tie-breaker.
Avtar Singh, C S Khalko and Harpreet Singh converted the strokes for Army XI while Mangra Munda and Bharat Kumar scored for CISF.
Besides CRPF and Army XI, BSF and Bombay XI had already earned places in the last eight stage.
The four seeded teams to get direct entry to the quarter-final league stage are title holders Punjab Police, Air India, Punjab and Sind Bank and Indian Oil.
The quarter-final matches, to start on Friday, would be played in two round-robin groups with top two teams from each group qualifying for the semi-finals.
