East Zone Santosh Trophy qualifying round concludes with West Bengal and Services through to final round

GANGTOK, 31 Jan: West Bengal has also secured its place in the final round of the ongoing 68th edition of the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy. With this Services and West Bengal have qualified from the East Zone for the final round of the tournament.
Playing the last match of Group ‘B’ for East Zone here at Paljor Stadium today, West Bengal held Odisha for a goalless draw. Topping Group B with 7 points from its 3 matches, the Services has qualified for the final round, while Odisha is in second position with 5 points from 3 matches.
Similarly, in the other match of Group ‘B’ played today, Chhattisgarh outplayed Bihar 2-1. Vijayendra Kumar scored the lead for Chhattisgarh in the 13th minute while his teammate Athnes Baxla extended the lead in the 40th minute to finish the first half with a 2-0 lead. In the second half, the face saver for Bihar was scored by Md Aftab Alam in the 74th minute.
In Group ‘B’, Chhattisgarh stood in the third position with 4 points and Bihar finished last with no points.
In Group ‘A’, Services is on the top with 6 points followed by Sikkim in the second position with 3 points and Jharkand in the last position with no points.