Punjab women emerge winners, men bag bronze medal in national baseball championship

Punjab players proved their mettle, winning gold medal in the women’s section and bronze medal in the men’s category in the 38th Senior National Baseball Championship, held at Sant Gadge Baba University, Amravati in Maharashtra, recently. Both the teams won these positions for the third consecutive year.

The women’s team, with seven players from Ludhiana district, namely Mamta, Navdeep Kaur, Nishu, Ashika, Sonali, Mehakdeep and Sadhna, came out triumphant. In the league matches, Punjab blanked Gujarat 12-0 and got the better of Assam 2-0 to advance into the quarterfinals, wherein they defeated Madhya Pradesh 10-2 and in semifinals, Punjab routed Uttarakhand 14-0 to set up the title clash with Maharashtra.

In the final, Punjab faced a stiff challenge from their opponents as the teams were tied at the end of five innings. However, in the tie-breaker, they beat Maharashtra 5-4 in which Navdeep Kaur, Ramandeep, Manveer, Nishu and Simranjeet Kaur scored one run each to steer their side to win the cliff-hanger and bag the title.

In the men’s group, Punjab, with three players from Ludhiana in its ranks—Gurpreet Singh, Arjun and Shivam—outplayed Assam 5-1, outperformed Uttarakhand 11-1 and thrashed Himachal Pradesh 18-0 to qualify for the semifinals where they failed to match up with Madhya Pradesh and lost it meekly 1-8 to finish at third place.

Sukhdev Singh Aulakh and Harbir Singh Gill, president and honorary secretary, respectively of Punjab Baseball Association appreciated the players on this achievement.