Thus, Punjab entered the quarterfinals and earned a chance to settle scores with Orissa, to whom they lost in the National Games in Bangalore last year.

Both Delhi and Punjab played at a fast pace. The short and quick first-time passes, rarely seen nowadays, made the match interesting and competitive. A few hundreds of knowledgeable crowd rooted for underdogs Delhi, who had an equal share of exchanges. In fact, they enjoyed possession of ball for better part with inside left Babita Khatri making a series of forays upfront.

Centre forward Sushil Sharma and right inside Savita combined well, initiating dangerous moves but invariably faltered on entering the circle, where Sneh Bala and Suman stood out in the Punjab defence withgood anticipation and timely clearances.

On the other hand, Punjab's moves were more purposeful and effective. The battle continued throughout the first session and a few minutes before the break Punjab forced a penalty corner but Delhi's Babita and Renu Kotnala thwarted danger. However, a few seconds later Punjab's Preetinder was in possession of the ball inside the circle. Her effort was blocked by Delhi's goalkeeper Neha and in hurry to cleared it with the wrong side of the stick.

The umpire immediately pointed to the dreaded spot. Sneh Bala drew the goalie to the wrong side and Punjab took the break leading 1-0.

Delhi put more thrust into the attack the second session but found the equaliser hard to get while Punjab held on to the narrow lead. However, they looked dangerous in counter attacks and one such move three minutes from time resulted in a penalty stroke. Preetinder drew the goalkeeper out and put Sarabjit Kaur in possession at the goalmouth. Delhi's Parvati tried to handle the ball in thegoalmouth and the resultant stroke was converted by Sarabjit.

Hosts bow out: Earlier, playing under adverse weather conditions hosts Tamil Nadu went down tamely to Uttar Pradesh, who entered the quarters with a 6-1 victory in the rain-interrupted match.

Tamil Nadu shot ahead through a smart penalty corner conversion by Mangaiyarkarasi in the 12th minute but failed to sustain the tempo. Midway through the first half UP's Shashi Navaidh not only scored the equaliser but put her team in the lead scoring twice in the space of three minutes. Two minutes before the break Tamil Nadu girls conceded a controversial stroke and their protests fell on deaf ears resulting in the temporary suspension of Mangaiyarkarasi and skipper Akilandeeswari.

Though the team vastly benefitted from the services of coach Jeyasekaran, expecially in penalty corner conversions, Uttar Pradesh were a class apart. Defending for most part of the game, Tamil Nadu gave up much before the match ended. They indulged in lot of mispassesand their clearances were left much to be desired. To add to their woes the ball was not moving on the water-logged turf.

Results: Orissa 6 (Annarita Kerketta 2, Anita, Jashinta, Sarita and Fulmani Xalxo) bt PEPSU 0

Uttar Pradesh 6 (Shashi Navaidh 2, Mridula Kesarvani 2, Sunita Shrivastava, Neelam Kushwaha) bt Tamil Nadu 1 (Mangaiyarkarasi)

Haryana 13 (Surinder Kaur 3, Suman Bala 3, Meenakshi 3, Simarjeet Kaur, Sarala Rani, Gurpreet Kaur, Balwinder Kaur) bt West Bengal 0

Punjab 2 (Sneh Bala, Sarabjit Kaur) bt Delhi 0

QF line-up: Railways vs Chandigarh; Punjab vs Orissa; UP vs Haryana; Bombay vs Bihar