Manipur win Women's National Football Championship again
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, June 05 2017: Ng Bala scored twice and Dangmei Grace once as Manipur defeated Railways Sports Promotion Board 3�1 to win the 22nd State Senior Women's National Football Championship in Jallandhar, Punjab.

For the record, this is the 18th title for the state out of all the editions.

Ng Bala repeated her successful strike in a similarly way as in the semi-final against Odisha on June 3 .

In that match, she opened the account for Manipur around the beginning of the second half.

She fired even earlier today at 21st minute into the first half.

Manipur win Women's National Football Championship again

Railways' Kabita did a rescue act by scoring a goal after six minutes' play of the second half, yet the Manipuri attack was too much for her team, which fielded three Manipuri players out of the six in the squad.

Just two minutes later, Dangmei Grace�who also scored one of the two goals against Odisha�left the Railways' defence into tatters again and the score read 2�1 in favour of Manipur.

When Ng Bala struck once more in the 81st minute, it was cleared that Manipur was well into scripting another history.

The convincing win, besides the record win of 18 titles, show again that the team is invincible.

Twenty-six teams divided into eight groups participated in the Championship.

In the national women's tournament, the preliminary qualifying league is played on a single leg league basis.

The eight winners move on to the two quarter final leagues, that are played as a single leg league, with the best two teams of each group qualifying for the semi-final stage.

From there on it is a knock-out format with single leg matches.

Quarter-finals
May 27 Manipur 5 Delhi 0
May 29 Manipur 5 TN 0
May 31 Manipur 9 Haryana 0

Semi-final
June 3 Manipur 3 Odisha 1

The championship had its first edition in Imphal in 1991�92.Till today, Manipur had missed the final bus only once in Bhilai (Chhatisgarh) in 2013�14 .

Odisha had beaten Bengal to win the 19th edition.

In only four editions of the Senior Women's National Football Championships, the state had had unsuccessful campaigns.

This was also a great comeback for the state.

Railways had won the last year's Championship in Jabalpur via a tie-breaker after the game ended in a 3�3 draw at regulation time�and it was the third final that Manipur had missed the chance.

Apparently, the ladies from the state could not afford the fourth miss.